Does the Merger of Banks Reduce Operational and Market Risk?

The objective of banks’ policymakers is risk management. Merging of banks is a method to improve risk management. Operational risk and market risk are two of the most crucial risks for banks, serving as the foundation for other risks. Therefore, the management of these risks is important. Iran merged five banks in 2017. One of the concerns of this program’s administrators and banking researchers is whether the merger of banks can enhance the management of operational risk and market risk. To answer this question, this article investigates the short- and long-term effects of bank mergers on operational risk and market risk using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. To measure operational risk and market risk, we used the Basel Committee’s guidelines and Sepah Bank’s financial statement data for 2011-2022. For the purpose of measuring the integration of banks, a dummy variable has been considered, during the 2011-2017 that it is one and it is zero before 2011 and after 2017. Results indicate the merger of banks increases operational risk in the short- and long-term, while market risk increases in the short-term and decreases in the long-term. Investing in assets ratio has little impact on operational risk, but can reduce market risk. The relationship between the increase in deposit interest rate and operational risk is negative, while there is positive relationship between market risk and deposit interest rate.