bank capital management
like other corporations, banks must determine the level of capital that they should maintain. Bank operations are distinctly different from other types of firms because the majority of their assets (such as loans and security holdings) generate more predictable cashflows. thus, banks can use a much higher degree of financial leverage than other types of firms. the FDIC, which insures depositors, bears most of the risk in the event of failure. Depositors who are fully normally do not penalize banks for taking excessive risk, which could encourage some banks to use a high degree of financial leverage.
bank must also consider the minimum capital ratio reguired by reguired by regulators. this minimum could possibly force a bank minimum more capital than it believes is optimal. To please shareholders, bank typeically attempt to maintain only the amount of capital that is sufficient to support bank operations. Lf a bank has too much capital as a result of issuing excessive amounth of stock, each shareholder will receive a smaller proportion of any distributed earnings.
a common measure of the return to the sharehoders is the return on equity measured as