Journal of Finance and Bank Management

An Analysis of Performance of Commercial Banks in Belize during Post Global Recession Period
Dr. Somanadevi Thiagarajan

Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of five major commercial banks in Belize during the period of 2008-2015 using CAMEL approach. The data for thecommercial banks were collected from Central Bank of Belize and the macroeconomic data were collected from the Statistical Institute of Belize. The panel data were analysed by using SPSS. The results of the study showed that the capital adequacy for all the banks were higher than the legal requirement of 9% with Bank D maintaining the highest of over 40% in the past five years. The ratio of Non-Performing Loans to Total Loans (NPL/TL) was increasing gradually from 2008 to 2010 and started to decrease from 2011 to 2015 for all the banks. The NPL/TL was significantly higher for Bank A and Bank C compared to the other banks. The ROE and ROA were in the positive territory for Bank B andBank D during the period of study, however there was a decreasing trend throughout the study period. The ROE and ROA were in negative territory from 2008 to2010 for Bank A, from 2013 to 2015 for Bank E and from 2010 to 2014 for the Bank C. The cash to deposit ratio was consistently low for Bank D with around 20% whereas it was consistently higher for the Bank E and reached over 50% from 2012 onwards. The correlation analysis showed that there was strong negative relationship between non-interest expense to total loan and ROE and ROA. As expected there was a negative correlation between NPL/TL and ROE and ROA. There was no significant influence of GDP and Inflation on ROE and ROA of the commercial banks. The composite analysis of the CAMEL criteria used in this study for the five banks revealed that Bank Dand Bank B performed better than the other banks.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jfbm.v6n2a3