Financial Sector Reforms in Bank Regulations and Supervision and its Impact on Banking Competitiveness and Economic Efficiency of Commercial Banks in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper examines critically the impact of financial sector reforms in bank regulations and supervision on competitiveness of commercial banks in Tanzania in respect of economic efficiency. The study adopted qualitative method for data collection. Data were collected from bank customers and bank officials from thirty two commercial banks in Tanzania that were already registered by the Bank of Tanzania by the end year 2010. A self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 1600 customers and 184 bank officials. Of these, 893(60%) bank customers and 81(44%) bank officials responded. Data were analyzed using SPSS 17.0 to estimate the mean (SD) scores of economic efficiency variable constructs and chi-square tests to determine the association between reforms on bank regulations and economic efficiency. Results show that there is negative relationship between reforms on banking regulations and economic efficiency leading to conclude that the level of competitiveness of commercial banks has not been impacted by the financial sector reforms.

Keywords: Financial Sector Reforms, Banking Competitiveness. Bank Regulations, Economic Efficiency