Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 11, No 1 (2015)

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to analyze banking efficiency and productivity considering evidences from Western Balkan countries in pre crisis, during and the recovery period. Referring to the historic background and the transformations suffered, the WB countries have developed bank based financial structure so the soundness of the banking sector is significantly important for the stability and progress of their economies on the long run. The problems faced by the last recession, the deteriorated macroeconomic indicators and weak, inefficient banking sector translated in slow recovery rates, encouraged this study. Prior studies have been mainly focused in causes and effects of crisis in different sectors of economies while this paper presents relations and dependencies between the macroeconomic and bank specific efficiency determinants. The methodology used is the comparison between countries and as method the financial ratio analysis, intending the presentation of trends and evaluation of changes in efficiency, profitability and performance indicators during 2000-2007 comparing with 2008-2013. Results that the banking sector profitability indicators follow the same negative trend with the economic growth rates and the recovery rates are lower than the forecasted. The results can be used by performance monitors to better identify vulnerabilities and examine uncertainties/risks.