Determinants of Financial Distress in U.S. Large Bank Holding Companies

Abstract

With a sample of 354 U.S. large bank holding companies, this paper investigates the determination of financial distress in financial institutions. We find that: (1) the house price index is consistently significant and positively associated with the Distance-to-Default (DD) measure in the U.S. banking market; (2) all the three major banking risk characteristics i.e. non-performing loans, short-term wholesale funding, and the credit-risk indicator are reliable factors behind DD determination; (3) for the two alternative measures of BHC activity diversification, non-interest income is positively related with BHCs’ DD whereas off-balance-sheet activity is negatively associated to the financial distress measure; and (4) Relevant capital requirements indicators including Tier I Risk-Based Capital Ratio, Total Risk-Based Capital Ratio, Tier I Leverage Ratio should be taken in regulatory assessment of BHCs’ financial distress.

Keywords: Bank Holding Company; Distance-to-Default; Financial distress; Bank regulation; Capital requirements; Non-interest income; Off-balance-sheet activities

JEL Classification: C53, G14, G21, G28