Bank-Specific and Macroeconomic Determinants of Profitability: Evidence from Private Commercial Banks in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper re-examines the determinants of profitability in Bangladeshi private commercial banks, using a panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) analysis of ten listed banks over 2014–2023 (n = 100 bank-year observations), together with a post-sample assessment of the sector's extraordinary deterioration through 2024–2025. Profitability is measured by return on assets (ROA), with return on equity (ROE) and net interest margin (NIM) used as robustness checks. Results show that capital adequacy and management efficiency significantly enhance profitability, while asset-quality deterioration and non-performing loans (NPLs) exert strong negative effects; liquidity management and bank size are largely insignificant, pointing to inefficiencies in deployment and scale. GDP growth is statistically negligible within-sample and inflation shows mixed effects, underscoring structural weaknesses in financial intermediation. A winsorization check (1st/99th percentiles) confirms that the capital-adequacy and NPL effects are stable to outlier treatment, while the management-efficiency effect is more sensitive. Extending the analysis with Bangladesh Bank, IMF, and World Bank data through 2025 shows that the sector-wide NPL ratio rose from below 10 percent in 2023 to more than 30 percent by late 2025, alongside a collapse in aggregate capital adequacy   a trajectory consistent with, and considerably amplifying, the credit-quality channel identified in the panel results. The study contributes methodologically by applying PCSE in a South Asian context, and offers policy implications for strengthening credit discipline, addressing regulatory forbearance, and improving banking efficiency.