The Choice of the Form of Representation in Multinational Banking: Evidence from Spain

Abstract:     
Banks can expand their activities abroad through different organizational forms: representative offices, agencies, branches and subsidiaries. The election by the bank of one of them will determine the range of services that he could offer through its overseas offices and, therefore, the role that it will play in the host country financial system. This paper investigates the importance of bank's ownership specific advantages in its form of representation in foreign locations. A prognostic model of the form of foreign banking operations has been specified. Afterwards, the model has been tested for the Spanish case through ordered logistic regression. Our results show the importance of the bank's ownership specific advantages in the form of overseas operations.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 15

JEL Classification: F23

working papers series