COVID-19 AND THE COMMERCIAL BANKING SECTOR IN PAKISTAN AN ALTERNATIVE WAY FORWARD

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the impact of Covid-19 on the Financial Performance of Commercial banks operating in Pakistan. Panel data set has been utilized for this purpose. Using panel random effect regression the results reveal that tangible assets and size both have significant impact on performance, the former impact is negative while the latter impact is positive on performance. However, the impact of both Covid-19 and leverage have not statistically significant impact on performance of the commercial banks.  The study also compares the results with those reporting in Rehman et al. (2025).  The results for firms size is similar for both banking system i-t it positively impact performance. While tangible assets is negative and statistically significant only in case of converntional banks. The study main variable of interest i-e Covid-19 has positive impact on Islamic banks whiles it impact in case of commercial banks is not significant. These difference might be due to the structural and the way the operate and how they respond to various factors (internal and external). These findings have implications for both the policy makers and academicians.