Technical Efficiency Analytics for the Public Banks in Argentina

In a context in which the competitive landscape of the Argentinian banking industry continues to mature as a result of phenomena such as globalization, modification of regulations, new technologies, and mergers and acquisitions, the quest for higher revenues has never been more stringent. It becomes relevant, therefore, to perform systematic benchmarking through the measurement of the efficiency of the banks. The present research paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to rank the Argentinian public banks based on their performance over 17 years, between 1998 and 2014. The results reveal that 1999 and 2002 were “black years” for the public banking sector, years during which the country registered political and economic and financial crises, respectively. Furthermore, the trend analysis shows that the Argentinian public banks are converging towards better consistency in their performance over the years. It is hoped that the present paper will provide the concerned authorities a ground to assess the health of the individual public banks.