Evaluating the Effect of COVID-19 on Profitability and Bank Performance

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of COVID-19 on profitability and employee performance in state-owned and private banks in Iran. In other words, the present study seeks to find an answer to whether COVID-19 can affect the profitability and performance of employees of Iranian banks or not. In terms of objective, the study method is a practical and descriptive survey. The study's statistical population comprises all managers, staff, and customers of state-owned and private banks in Iran, through which 540 questionnaires were filled and analyzed. The sampling method of the study is available non-random that is used as the study's sample. In this paper, the PLS tests are employed to assess the effect of independent variables on the dependent ones. The results from the study's hypotheses show that COVID-19 has a positive and significant effect on profitability and employee performance. Moreover, the effect is more tangible in state-owned banks than the private ones. The present study was carried out in emergent financial markets, like Iran, which is highly competitive and suffering from severe economic sanctions since due to the sanctions, most countries, including the United States, did not allocate vaccines to the Iranian people and that exacerbated the conditions in Iran, it can provide the readers with useful information to develop science and knowledge in this field.