Market structure and competitive conditions in the Iranian banking system

The issue of competition in the banking industry to reform the structure is one of the general policies adopted by the banking system in recent decades. The aim of this study was to determine the market structure and competitive conditions in the Iranian banking system and to develop an appropriate model of the banking system to improve competition. After reviewing the studies in the literature, according to the level of access to information, both structural and non-structural methods are used to assess the competitive situation in the Iranian banking system. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) was used a structural method and the Panzar-Rosse model with mixed data of 10 Iranian banks during the period from 2002 to 2016 were used to estimate competitive environment of the banking system. The results indicated the existence of monopoly competition in the Iranian banking system. Furthermore, to better evaluate the competitive environment of the financial system and determine the most important variables affecting this environment, using the model sensitivity analysis for each variable, it was concluded that increasing interest rates, increasing personnel costs, reducing the number of personnel, reducing the cost of each unit of physical capital, increase of risky assets and payment facilities, increase of total assets, decrease of capital, and decrease of number of branches are effective in improving the competitive environment, while the sensitivity of the model to personnel costs and physical capital is less than other variables.