Research On The Influence Of Digital Transformation Of Commercial Banks On The Credit Efficiency

In the digital age,continuous iterations of various cutting-edge digital technologies have penetrated widely in the financial field,greatly changing the traditional financial service format.As the major player in the financial market,commercial banks confront both challenges and opportunities in the wave of digital finance.On the one hand,in the context of interest rate marketisation,the narrowing spreads of commercial banks has become an general trend.The intensified competition among banks makes it unsustainable for commercial banks to solely rely on the traditional business model.On the other hand,driven by the development of fintech,a large number of fintech companies and traditional tech giants have flooded into the financial market.The financial intermediary status of commercial banks has been severely challenged.The use of financial technology to achieve digital transformation has been the necessary solution for the development of commercial banks nowadays.In this context,whether digital means can effectively drive up the quality and efficiency of conventional lending business has become a common concern in the banking industry.In order to study whether the digital transformation strategy can have a beneficial impact on the traditional credit business of banks in China,this paper selects the panel data of 76 commercial banks in China from 2012 to 2021 as the research sample.The study sample covers four main categories of banks: state-owned banks,joint-stock banks,urban commercial banks and rural commercial banks,so it is highly representative.In the empirical regressions,the explanatory variable chosen in this paper is the credit allocation efficiency,and the core explanatory variable chosen is the degree of digital transformation of banks.Among them,the credit fund allocation efficiency is measured by the total factor production efficiency calculated by the DEA-Malmquist model,and the degree of digital transformation is measured by the digital transformation index of China commercial banks proposed by the Digital Research Center of Peking University.The heterogeneous impact of the digital transformation on the credit efficiency of the banks is also considered in the process of the empirical research.The bank credit efficiency is regression with different dimensional indicators of digital transformation,namely strategic digitalization,business digitalization and management digitalization,as the core explanatory variables.In addition,the sample banks were divided into national banks and regional banks to return to the credit efficiency and digital transformation indicators to ensure the integrity and reliability of the research.Based on the above empirical analysis process,the paper presents the following three conclusions:Firstly,there is a remarkable positive relationship between the digital transformation of commercial banks and the allocation efficiency of bank credit funds.It means that the promotion of digital transformation can effectively improve the input-output efficiency of commercial bank credit business;Secondly,Strategic digitalization,business digitalization and management digitalization can all have a positive impact on the credit allocation efficiency of commercial banks.But there was a heterogeneity in the degree of influence.Among them,strategic digitalization has the greatest impact,followed by business digitalization and management digitalization is the last;Thirdly,digital transformation has a positive impact on the efficiency of credit funding allocation for both national commercial banks and regional commercial banks,but the influence degree is heterogeneous.The positive effect to national commercial banks is more obvious due to the relatively mature results of digital transformation,while the positive impact to regional commercial banks is relatively weak.According to the above research findings,this paper provides feasible suggestions for the sustainable development of commercial banks from strategic planning,business integration and operation management.The research in this paper complements the academic findings of the efficiency evaluation of commercial banks,and can also provide practical reference value for the digital transformation of China’s banking industry.