The Effect of Non-Performing Loan on Profitability: Empirical Evidence from Nepalese Commercial Banks

The main objective of this research is to find out the effect of Non-Performing Loan (NPL) of Nepalese conventional banks. The population of this study is major commercial banks in Nepal and the data obtained for this study was from the period 2015–2019. This research used secondary data and it is collected from each bank’s annual report and GDP and Inflation taken from the World Bank database. The method used for data analysis in this study is multiple regression analysis. The study used NPL as a dependent variable and Return on Asset (ROA), Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Bank Size, GDP growth, and Inflation as independent/explanatory variables. The result of this research shows that ROA, Bank Size, GDP, and Inflation have a significant effect on NPL but CAR does not have a significant effect on the NPL of banks. In other words, the GDP effect on NPL in this study shows a positive and significant effect while most studies show a negative effect. It demonstrates that when GDP growth increases, there is a significant increase in the growth of Nepalese banks even though there were no significant changes in income growth. Therefore, GDP growth has a positive and significant effect on the NPL of commercial banks. Thus, the bankers and policymakers need to consider GDP growth carefully while taking NPL-related decisions.