Assessing Bank Branch Growth Potential by Using Data Envelopment Analysis

Despite technological progress, still, bank branches are amongst key supply channels of delivering financial products. So, increasing the efficiency of branches is one of the main goals of banks. But the question whether branches are likely to grow due to the environmental conditions and internal capacities is less the subject of studies. This paper addresses the growth potential of bank branches based on three different perspectives of branch growth introduced in LaPlante and Paradi (2014), say open/closed accounts model, market model, and hybrid model. Also considering environmental variables, by the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. The opened/closed accounts model evaluates which branches maintain and attract customers better than the others. In the market model, according to market characteristics of each branch, their relative share of the market is evaluated. And, in the hybrid model, the combination of the two first models has been used. The sample of this research area involves the first-grade branches of Eqtesad Novin bank of Tehran in the period of 2013-2015. According to the results of each model, suggestions for proper growth of branches and potential capacity to growth are presented.