Inter-temporal performance: Does bank-size matter? An analysis of Utah banks

This paper evaluates the inter-temporal performance of commercial banks with headquarters in the State of Utah between 2000 and 2004. This analysis of performance of the banking industry in the State of Utah is based on three categories of bank size1 by using two measures of performance - profits and quality of loans. T-tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests are applied to a variety of standard bank operations measures to determine whether there are significant differences in performance. Among the factors evaluated are Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), loan loss reserve ratio, and loans past due 30-89 days as a percentage of total loans. This paper finds no significant difference in performance between small and large banks between the years 2000 and 2004. However, there is a significant difference between small and medium, and medium and large banks in their ROA. The ROA of medium banks is significantly higher than that of small and large banks.