An Empirical Analysis of The Determinants of Bank Internationalization: The Case of India and Nigeria

There has been an increase in the number of multinational banks (MNBs) in India and Nigeria. While the literature is replete with analysis of multinational banking in developed countries, not much is known about the drivers of multinational banking in developing countries. This chapter uses the linear probability estimation technique and a sample of 57 Indian and Nigerian banks to investigate firm-level determinants of bank internationalization, as well as inter-bank variations in the number of foreign branches/subsidiaries. The empirical results suggest that the decision by banks from India and Nigeria to internationalize is influenced by firm-level characteristics such as after-tax profit, capital adequacy ratio (CAR), total assets (TA or bank size), volume of customer deposits (CD) and the number of domestic branches. A bank’s decision to establish a given number of foreign branches and subsidiaries depends on variables such as CAR, CD and TA. Based on the empirical results, the chapter proposes some hypotheses about bank internationalization in developing countries.