The Effects of Credit Risk on the Profitability of Commercial Banks in Afghanistan

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of credit risk on commercial banks’ profitability in Afghanistan. Due to the availability of limited data, this study applies the Fixed Effects estimator on balance panel data of six domestic private commercial banks over the period 2014–2018. The study uses LLRTL, TLTA, and TLTD as credit risk indictors, size as bank-specific determinant, ROAA, ROAE, and NIM as profitability indicators. The study finds a robust negative and significant effect of LLRTL on ROAA, and ROAE, but positive and insignificant on NIM. The results also reveal significant positive effect of TLTA on NIM, however insignificant negative on ROAA while insignificant positive on ROAE. The study finds negative effect of TLTD on ROAA, ROAE, and NIM, but only significant on NIM. Further, this study reveals a robust negative and significant effect of size on all profitability indicators. The mean comparison of profitability demonstrates that NIM is in a better situation than others profitability indicators, which is a good sign for the Afghan banking sector. The findings of this study suggest that improving credit management, increasing efficiency of asset management or effectiveness of business model can increase commercial banks’ profitability in Afghanistan.