Journal of Finance and Bank Management

Tunisian Banking System Distress and Fragility: An Empirical Study
Ines Andrea Ati

Abstract
The last international financial crisis has shown the primary position occupied by the bank in the financial architecture. Despite good appreciation by notation agencies, this crisis was imputed to an excessive risk taking by banks and tothe weakness of the supervision of their activities.Hence, it was necessary to rethink the evaluation of the fragility of banks and break with traditional approaches to calculate the fragility. This paper subscribes to this lineage research on better appreciation of the fragility of Tunisian banks. For this purpose, we used the indices of Fragility Banking System (BSF).In this research, we have conducted an empirical study in order to asses the index of stress and to measure the Tunisian banking system fragility. We have observed that the banking fragility is growing since 2000. The importance of the portfolio of nonperforming loans is the main cause of this fragility.The results indicate that the fragility is imputed to traditional factors such as, the financial liberalization, the lack of banking supervision, the international competition and the low levels of profitability.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jfbm.v3n2a8