Liquidity is the ability of a bank to fund assets and meet obligations, as they become due, at reasonable costs. Technological and financial innovations have impacted the management of liquidity in banks. Declining ability to rely on core deposits, increased reliance on capital markets and recent turmoil in financial markets have created new challenges for banks in managing liquidity. The current study has discussed theories, indicators, factors influencing bank liquidity, and its implications on bank’s capital and profitability. It has empirically analyzed the determinants of liquidity through Arellano-Bond estimates and studied the interrelationship of liquidity, regulatory capital, and profitability through 2-SLS system equations. It has found that bank size, profitability, leverage, net interest margin, CRAR, gross non-performing loans, and Central Bank Policy Rate are the significant determinants of banks’ liquidity. The interactive effects among liquidity, profitability, and regulatory capital convey that banks can be more liquid with less profit, but less risky with more liquidity.

Interconnectedness among banks is a key distinguishing feature of the banking system. It helps mitigate liquidity problems but on the other hand, acts as a curse in propagating systemic risk at times of distress. Thus, as banks cannot function in isolation, this study uses the Contemporary Theory of Networks to examine banking competition in India for five distinct economic phases, emphasizing upon the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a Market Power Network Index (MPNI), which uses network parameters to measure banks’ market power. This network structure shows a formation of bank clusters that are involved in competition. Specifically, network properties, such as centroid, average path length, the distance of a node from the centroid, the total number of connections in the inter-bank market, and network density, do go on to explain banking competition. It is interesting to note that crisis periods witness a lower level of competition, with GFC bearing the least competition. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic shows a lower trend, but it is of a higher magnitude than GFC. It was also found that big-sized, profitable, capital adequate, and public banks dominate the banking system. Notably, this study was conducted on a sample of 33 listed Indian banks from April 2008 to December 2020.

Purpose: This paper has used account-level data of corporate and retail borrowers, assessed their credit risk through the risk-neutral principle and examined its implication on loan pricing.Design/methodology/approach: It derives the capital charge and credit risk-premium for expected and unexpected losses through a risk-neutral approach. It estimates the risk-adjusted return on capital as the pricing principle for loans. Using GMM regression, the article has assessed the determinants of risk-based pricing.Findings: It has been found that risk-premium is not reflected in the current loan pricing policy as per Basel II norms. However, the GMM estimation on RAROC can price risk premium and probability of default, LGD, risk weight, bank beta and capital adequacy, which are the prime determinants of loan pricing. The average RAROC for retail loans is more than that of corporate loans despite the same level of risk capital requirement for both categories of loans. The robustness tests indicate that the RAROC method of loan pricing and its determinants are consistent against the time and type of borrowers.Research limitations/implications: The RAROC method of pricing effectively assesses the inherent risk associated with loans. Though the empirical findings are confined to the sample bank, the model can be used for any bank implementing the Basel principle of risk and capital assessments.Practical implications: The article has developed and validated the model for estimating RAROC, as per Basel II guidelines, for loan pricing that any bank can use.Social implications: It has developed the risk-based loan pricing model for retail and corporate borrowers. It has significant practical utility for banks to manage their risk, reduce their losses and productively utilise the public deposits for societal developments.Originality/value: The article empirically validated the risk-neutral pricing principle using a unique 1,520 retail and corporate borrowers dataset.