Interactions Between Effectiveness and Consolidation of Commercial Banks in the Polish Banking Sector

Abstract

Bank consolidation is a process that has been observed in the world economy since the early 1980s. Until the global financial crisis formation of bank capital groups and financial conglomerates was considered as banks’ response to the globalization of financial system. After the global financial crisis, a “consolidation window” opened up in the global economy, which did not bypass the Polish banking sector. At the same time, it coincided with the support of the Polish government interested in its repolonization, which in a consequence resulted in an increase of the concentration level of bank capital. The main aim of the paper is the analysis of consolidation processes after the global financial crisis, as well as interactions between concentration of commercial banks in Poland (as a quantitative approach to the consolidation process) and their operational efficiency. The research indicates that concentration of the Polish banking sector affects effectiveness of the sector and individual commercial banks. However, scale and strength of these dependencies varies between the analyzed cases.