The purpose of this study was to examine banks’ strategic adjustments to the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines how deep and pressing the necessary transformations are, based on an analysis of the banking sectors of Central, Eastern, and Northern European countries (CENE): the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The main research question posed asks how the pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis have changed banks’ sources of profits and risks, forcing banks to speed up structural transformations. In particular, the study identified and verified the following hypotheses: that the initial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on banks in the analyzed region was heterogeneous and that the pandemic has intensified the challenges of digitalization and forced banks to speed up the digital transformations of their business models. The methodology employed was the dynamic panel data model—generalized method of moment (GMM-SYS version), using an adjusted dataset from the BankFocus database for unconsolidated bank data for the 2016–2020 period. The econometric analysis was supplemented with a CENE bank survey, researching bank attitudes and the stage of digital transformation. The results of the survey revealed that the majority of the surveyed banks consider themselves digitalization leaders, with a clearly articulated and implemented digitalization strategy. The main finding of the study was that the digital focus may help large banks in CENE to address and offset problems revealed by the panel data model: that traditional sources of incomes, based on intermediation and interest-related incomes, no longer contribute positively to profitability but also to stability.

The 2007-2009 revealed the weaknesses of the growth foundation and failure of risk management systems in large global banks. Consequently, there has been renewed interest in the creation of stable and functional risk culture. Protecting a financial institution’s reputation is among the most significant challenges facing financial firms. Thus the aim of this paper is to analyze why reputational risk is important for banks, and to trace its sources and consequences. In the empirical part, the paper proposes a new method to measure reputational risk: Stakeholder Reputation Score (SRS). The panel regression models are used to examine the impact of the SRS indicator on bank performance, for listed banks in the CEE-11. The estimation results indicate that the efforts to enhance bank reputation may not have a positive effect on bank performance, which may explain why many banks deal with reputational risk mainly in the context of minimizing loss after a scandal, rather than treating it as a strategic, long-term goal

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In response to the financial crisis of 2008, the global banking industry has been undergoing fundamental regulatory changes, imposed by the Basel III Agreement, the 2010 US Dodd-Frank Act and the introduction of a new European supervisory structure. This paper analyses the possible long-term impact of this new regulatory framework on the banking sectors of CEE-5 countries. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on the anticipated long-term impact of the new regulatory environment for bank stability and efficiency, with a focus on host countries from Central and Eastern Europe. The main research question is whether the post crisis regulatory and supervisory architecture, based on a new macro and micro institutional framework, will have a positive impact on banks in CEE. To answer these questions, we analyse the condition of CEE-5 banking sectors. In particular, we are looking how banks in CEE-5 reacted to two different periods: the pre-crisis period of a dynamic economic and credit market growth and the period of global economic and financial collapse (2008), using DEA methodology, measures of market competitive conditions and bank stability index Z-score.