“…Further, (Fernandez de Lis, Pag es, & Jesus, 2000;Hu, Li, & Chiu, 2004) find a negatively significant relationship between assets and non-performing loans in Spain, which means that the size of a bank's assets could decrease the incidence of NPLs. Also, several studies address and use banks' assets as a microeconomic proxy for banks, (Distinguin, Roulet, & Tarazi, 2013;Imbierowicz & Rauch, 2014, Chatterjee, 2015Ono & Uesugi, 2009;Swamy, 2018).…”