Capital Adequacy and Credit Risk in Banking: The Moderating Role of Revenue Diversification

Abstract Capital regulatory requirements are one of the prominent mechanisms to control bank credit risk-taking behavior and subsequently achieve financial stability. The study aimed to evaluate the moderating role of revenue diversification in the relationship between capital adequacy and credit risk behavior of 102 listed South Asian banks. We collected data from DataStream covering the period from 2011 to 2022. The study employed a fixed effect panel data model, system GMM, a two-step system dynamic panel estimation technique, and the Sargan test to analyze study results, resolve potential endogeneity problems, effectively use short time period and long cross-section dataset, and achieve instrument validity, respectively. We conclude that South Asian banks face low levels of credit risk and the interaction of revenue diversification with the capital adequacy ratio significantly and negatively reduces credit risk. The findings implicate little adverse selection problem among South Asian banks and the need for expanding non-traditional income sources while fulfilling regulatory capital requirements.