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Abstract:The paper emphasizes that any approach to defi ning technical effi ciency in banking is just a diff erent outlook on manifold goals and functions that commercial banks pursue. Three commonly applied approaches, i.e. the service-oriented approach, the intermediation approach and the profi toriented approach, are not in confl ict but are complementary in providing information on how commercial banks perform in fi nancial intermediation, provision of banking services and profi t seeking. In addition to the methodological contribution of the paper, it investigates the effi ciency of the Slovak banking industry over the years 2000-2011 so as to fi nd whether employment of a specifi c approach changes the view on effi ciency of individual commercial banks. To this end, the non-parametric method of evaluation is employed based on the slack-based measure model of data envelopment analysis. The results suggest that general impressions of the effi ciency status of individual banks as obtained within the three approaches are similar in most cases.Keywords: effi ciency, the Slovak banking industry, SBM model, the intermediation approach, the service-oriented approach, the profi t-oriented approach JEL Classifi cation: G21, C44

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In this paper, the technical effi ciency and the super-effi ciency of a representative sample of insurance institutions in Slovakia is analyzed with the aid of data envelopment analysis (DEA). This paper diff ers from the so far published literature, as it extends the application of radial DEA models (the CCR model of Charnes, Cooper and Rodes; the BCC model of Banker, Charnes and Cooper) by a non-radial model (the SBM model of Tone) and a super-effi ciency model. The supper-effi ciency can be used either to rank effi cient units or to indicate outliers in the analyzed group of decision making units. Achieved results also reveal that in the year 2013, among 13 Slovak insurance companies under evaluation, the AXA poisťovňa, a. s. was the super-effi cient insurance company. The implications of gained results are then drawn for managerial and regulatory purposes. Firstly, it is shown how the management of the insurance institutions with the poorest performances should change their managerial procedures and adopt enhanced-incentive policy. Secondly, the regulatory body of the insurance institutions should utilize the gained technical effi ciency of the analyzed institutions for the prediction of their competitiveness in the long run.

It is common practice in data envelopment analysis to assess commercial banks by the efficiency that they display in their operations under different outlooks on their behaviour; yet, even the intermediation approach does not measure actually the success with which commercial banks or a banking sector fulfil their mission of financial intermediaries. Such an assessment is traditionally accomplished by means of the loan-to-deposit ratio that captures rather size or depth of financial intermediation, but no link is sought to best practices that are observed in the banking sector. The paper proposes a model of financial intermediation that permits assessing on a comparative basis the attainment in financial intermediation. The devised index of financial intermediation recognizes through weights that diverse outcomes of financial intermediation exhibit differentiated importance to the economy and is closely connected with the weighted slacks-based measure (WSBM). The WSBM that emerges in this respect encompasses only production variables that define financial intermediation (i.e. deposits and intermediated outputs) whilst other production variables are treated as non-discretionary. The model can be applied in variants for a single commercial bank in one specific year (Model I) or for aggregated bankyears such as one particular bank over the entire period or various banks in one year (Model II). The ideas are demonstrated on a data set of Slovak commercial banks for the period between 2008 and 2016 and the difference of the proposed approach with traditional efficiency measurement under the intermediation approach is discussed. KeywordsFinancial intermediation • Loan-to-deposit ratio • Data envelopment analysis (DEA) • Weighted slacks-based measure (WSBM) • Aggregation over years or banks JEL Classification G20 • E59 • O50