금융중개의 역기능 현상에 대한 실증연구 : 중소기업 대출을 중심으로

This Study is designed to analyze the adverse effects of commercial banking on SME loan in Korea. Most of small and medium enterprises in Korea borrow money from commercial banks and have no alternative funding source since they are not able to issue corporate bonds in the capital market due to their poor credit. This situation potentially brings about banks’ behavior to pursue excess profits by requiring higher rates when they loan to small and medium enterprises. Since these excess profits lead to increased net interest margin of the banks, the relationship between the ratio of SME loans to total loans and the net interest margin could explain the existence of the adverse effect. The effect is explored by using regression models with interaction variables to examine the sensitivity of the net interest margin to the SME loan ratio. The estimation result shows that the regression coefficient of the SME loan ratio is positive and statistically significant. In particular, the estimated coefficient of the SME loan ratio is significantly larger for a group of banks with a greater proportion of SME loans,suggesting that banks which give greater weight on SME loans tend to have a larger increase in the net interest margin in response to an increase in SME loans. Since many small businesses in Korea, unable to obtain credit from non-bank financial institutions, have been forced to turn to banks for their funds, this finding indicates a possibility of the banks’behavior to pursuit excess profits in making loans to SME. This adverse effect of banking is also pronounced for a group of local banks with a greater proportion of SME loans. Considering that local banks have been known to have an exclusive access to information about local SMEs and a dominant market power in the regional loan markets, this result is not unforseen. To mitigate the adverse effect problem, the government should promote the development of diverse capital markets, so SMEs can diversify their credit sources.