금융기업 겸업화의 국제비교분석과 시사점

International Comparison of Diversification in the Financial Sector and its Implication

Business diversification in the financial sector (so called universal banking) has become increasingly widespread since the latter half of the 1980s. The key feature of universal banking is the triple combination of commercial banking, investment banking, and insurance businesses. In a large number of countries, various long-standing laws and customs that have separated commercial banking from the securities and other business activities are promptly being removed. Although differences across countries still remain in terms of their structure, power, and regulatory framework, banking activities have become much more uniform internationally. More Important than any single similarity in the legal and regulatory systems, or the actual practice of banking, is the common trend in banking philosophy Increasing competition in the financial sector, as well as the rapid advancement of information technology, should be credited for encouraging this convergence. This study examines business diversification of financial companies using macro and micro level data of 19 countries for the period 1996 to 1999 Specifically, we use the Standard Industrial Classlfication(SIC) code to measure the level of diversification, which is here defined as the number of sectors or industries in which a given financial firm operates This paper investigates those factors that may influence the financial firms' diversification decisions and their effects on the financial system which include its laws, regulations, and various financial activities We use cross-country data at both the financial firm level as well as the international level. Five major hypotheses are tested to examine the relationship between business diversification and industrial organization in the financial sector. The specific features of interest include the size of the financial firm, the size of the country's financial market, the ratio of the direct to indirect financial markets, and the size of the country's economy. We also consider other mstltutional environmental factors that may affect the diversification behavior of financial firms. In order to raise the competitiveness and the efficiency of the Korean financial system, this study suggests that the banking system should allow individual financial firms to enlarge their optional breadth through business diversification.