A Novel Approach to Evaluating Bank Branch Performance: Integrating Financial Ratios and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

Abstract

The banking system has a direct and reciprocal relationship with economic growth; thus, improving the efficiency of banks contributes significantly to sustainable economic development. Efficiency can be defined in various ways—for instance, a fully efficient organization utilizes 100% of its potential. Efficiency is typically assessed from technical, allocative, and economic perspectives, using both basic and advanced methods. In manufacturing firms, final outputs are usually tangible and well-defined. However, in the banking sector, outputs are less concrete and depend on how a bank’s role is conceptualized. Two major perspectives define the function of banks: first, as financial intermediaries—where inputs include labor, capital, and deposits, and outputs comprise loans and other income-generating assets; and second, as service providers—where inputs remain labor and capital, but outputs include deposits, loans, and other financial services. This study evaluates the efficiency of bank branches using two dis