COOPERATIVE BANKS’ BUSINESS MODEL AT THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE AND SOCIETAL INVOLVEMENT

In the aftermath of the financial crisis the European financial system, particularly banks, still struggles to recover the lost public confidence. Ethical financial behaviour and customer centricity have gained weight, not only from the viewpoint of banking customers, but also from international organizations’ one. The paper aims at analysing the strengths and challenges associated with a different banking model, namely the cooperative banks’ one, in terms of its ability to maintain its genuine, cooperative principles. The paper provides a comprehensive insight into the intrinsic financial indicators and their evolution over time. The descriptive statistics analysis comprises the 23 member organizations of European Association of Co-operative Banks, which represent the cooperative banks operating in EU countries, to have a complete picture of their positioning, in terms of market share, liquidity, capitalization and contribution to the domestic financial depth. Secondly, we conducted an exploratory approach named Cluster Analysis, for two years of reference, in order to identify most resembling business models and gather them in the same cluster. The results emphasized which cooperative member organizations still follow the original cooperative business model and mission, and which of them have migrated towards a more commercial banking one.