The impact of Profitability of Indian Scheduled Commercial Banks – A Factor analysis approach

Purpose Banking sector is playing an important role for the sustainable economic progress. Profitability in Indian scheduled commercial banks need to be assessed for the improvement of banking system. The purpose of the study is to analyse the impact of the profitability and evaluate the role in achieving high profitability of bank specific factors on the Indian scheduled commercial banks. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, financial ratiois used based on factor analysis. The data were analysed to identify profitability of Indian scheduled commercial banks for the period of 2006-07 to 2017-18. The study shows that no individual factor can be solely responsible for the variations in the profitability in the banks; it is a combination of different factors which are associated with profitability. Factor analyses were selected to identify the factors that get highest, moderate and lowest priority in banking performance. IBM SPSS 23 Version and E-Views 10 software have been used to identify the variables pertaining to the profitability of the banking sector. Findings The various analyses have been used to study the profitability and various tests have been applied to know the factors and bring out the variables. All the determinant variables included in the model have statistically significant impacts on Indian scheduled commercial banks’ profitability. However, the effects are not uniform across profitability measures in the banking sector. Nationalized Banks were associated with profitability and they were positioned at the top followed by SBI. Practical implications This study has significant policy implications on the performance banking sectorwhich depends on its efficiency, profitability and competitiveness in the Indian scheduled commercial bank. In view of these findings, some recommendations may be useful for bank regulatory authorities to strengthenthe profitability and sustainable growth and development in the banking sector. Originality/value The results provide interesting visions into the characteristics and practices of profitable scheduled commercial banks in India. Few econometric researches have empirically discovered the determining factor of bank profitability in India though comparable studies have been conducted in several developed countries like India. Thus, this research attempts to find significant gap in the existing literature enlightening the considerate of bank profitability in Indian scheduled commercial banks.