The Impact of COVID 19 Spread on Banking Performance: Evidence from Middle East Countries

The purpose of this article is to examine how the spread of COVID-19 has affected Middle Eastern banks. New Cases, Cumulative Cases, New Deaths, and Cumulative Deaths have been used to quantify COVID-19 spared. The CAMELS approach, which takes into account capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity to market risk, has also been used to measure banking performance. This has been conducted on Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, using panel data analysis according to GMM technique, during the period from 2017 to 2022. Results indicate that each of New Cases, Cumulative Cases and Cumulative Deaths may significantly affect banking performance of the Middle East countries, which may shed lights for policymakers and regulators of banking industry.