Asset liquidity and bank profitability in South Africa

Abstract

This paper empirically analyses the relationship between asset liquidity and bank profitability for South African banks for the period between 1994 and 2011. The study employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL)-bound testing approach to examine the linkage between return on assets (ROA) and liquidity, and the nexus between return on equity (ROE) and liquidity to capture the short-run and long-run dynamics. The study observes that there is neither a significant relationship between ROE and liquidity nor a relationship between ROE and liquidity. These observations hold for both the short-run and long-run. Banks are recommended to embrace the asset liability framework in their analysis and management of liquidity as the asset only approach is insufficient and misleading.