The Mediating Role of NIM on Market Structure and Bank Performance: Empirical Confirmation from Listed Nepalese CBs

This study examined the mediating role of net interest margin (NIM) on the nexus between market structure and banks’ performance. Two ordinary least-squares models with a path analysis model were applied to analyze the data. The first regression model measured the indirect effects of market structure, total assets, geographic expansion, and specialization on ROA through NIM and revealed that the higher market share of loans positively effects on bank’s performance and statistically insignificant. Similarly, the geographic expansion was observed to hurt the bank’s ROA, but statistically insignificant. On the other hand, the indirect effect of total asset size and specialization was negative, but the first one was statistically significant, and the second was statistically insignificant. The result of the second regression model measured the direct effect of antecedent variables on the ROA and revealed that the market structure, geographic expansion, and specialization were negatively related to performance measure ROA. However, the direct effect of total assets size was positively related to ROA and statistically significant. The results of the two regression models based on total effects revealed that a higher bank size appeared favorable to Nepalese CBs and was found to have positive effects on ROA but the geographic expansion was a negative effect on ROA, and statistically significant. The results of the study might be helpful to Nepalese bankers, regularity authorities, and other concerned stakeholders to take an effective decision about the direct, indirect, and total effects of chosen antecedent variables on consequent variables through the mediating role of NIM.