The Factors Influencing Banks Credit Risk in Iran

The issues of bank’s credit risk as well as overdue receivable are among the critical concerns of banking industry, in a sense that they can be regarded as the main determinants of bankruptcy of banks in the world. The economic crisis of America rooted in the increasing of credit risk has revealed the significance of considering this notion more than ever. Recently, the enhancement of overdue receivable to banks resulted from the economic recession coupled with inflation has threaten banking system. To address this subject, this study aimed at investigating the influence of macro-economic as well as intra-banking factors on credit risk in Iran’s banking system, employing Bayesian method. The data were collected from 14 Iranian active banks in a period of 10 years (2003-2013). The result indicated that liquidity risk, loans to deposit ratio, return to asset, capital to asset ratio, and bank size with 100 percent, and efficiency ratio with that of 97 percent were respectively the best predictors of credit risks of banks in Iran. Having 25 percent, the rest of variables such as the net interest margin, the structured finance, deposit ratio, and macro-economic variables did not significantly impact the credit risk. It seems that these variables, especially the macro ones might affect the credit risk through intra-banking factors.