Effective Factors on the Inefficiency of Banks Loan Loss Provisions

Loan loss provisions (LLP) and its related costs are factors having reducing effect on the profit and assets of banks. Iranian banks estimate their LLP each year according to the instructions provided by Central Bank of Islamic Republic of Iran. In this study, the main questions are: 1-whether LLP estimation is acceptable or not considering the financial and risk situation of banks, 2- if the estimated LLP is significantly different from the optimal value, how much it should be, and 3- which factors are affecting on this difference. In this regard, by adopting stochastic frontier model and using 19-bank financial data from 2007 to 2013 time period we examine the efficiency of Iranian banks’ LLP estimates. The results show that banks’ inefficiency scores in estimating LLP are different in various years. Iranzamin Bank with inefficiency score of 0.00054 was the most efficient bank and Bank Mellat with inefficiency score of 0.042 has been considered as the least efficient bank in estimating LLP in 2011.