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This study aims to investigate whether various types of risks faced by the publicly listed commercial banks of India and Bangladesh are driven by market power and provides comparative insights from both economies.

By using the adjusted Lerner index to gauge bank market power and applying the generalised methods of moments (GMM) regression approach, the research delved into the relationship between bank market power and three distinct facets of risk across a sample of 26 publicly listed commercial banks in India and 22 listed banks in Bangladesh spanning from 2011 to 2022.

The results indicate that for Bangladesh, both “competition fragility” and “competition stability” viewpoints coexist simultaneously across all risk types, supporting a nonlinear relationship between market power and risk. However, in the Indian context, a nonlinear association exists only in the case of credit risk, while the relationship with insolvency risk is linear, substantiating the “competition fragility view”. Apart from market power and bank-specific variables, GDP growth rate has emerged as a prominent driver across all risk categories in both countries.

The filtration of banks is a limitation that might have influenced the outcomes. This study recommends that the Reserve Bank of India encourages further bank consolidation. Along the same line, Bangladesh Bank should closely oversee the growing competitive landscape. Furthermore, the regulators must monitor the elevated levels of non-performing loans to reduce credit risk so as to bolster the stability of their respective banking sectors.

This comparative study is the first attempt to analyse the market power and risk relationship and includes a novel bank-specific variable, i.e. technology, apart from other established variables.

The purpose of the paper is to confirm the adherence of double bottom line objectives by the microfinance institutions (MFIs) of India and, further, to identify the causal factors that work out their double bottom line commitments.

The study uses an empirical data set for the period of 10 years, i.e. from 2005–2006 to 2014–2015, gathered from www.mixmarket.org. It follows an exploratory approach with overall and segmented performance analysis. Further, a panel data regression model is applied to identify the causal factors of double bottom line.

The study finds that MFIs are adhering to the notion of double bottom line. The segregated analysis does not give any solid indications of trade-off. The mature and small MFIs are found to be better in attaining social objective but the new and large are better in sustainability. The non-governmental organization (NGO) category is more committed to the double bottom line than the non-NGO. The causal analysis could not show any relationship between financial performance and outreach. Though age and outreach size show relationships with small loan sizes, they do not influence sustainability. The operating and financial expenses along with portfolio quality are found to be the main causal variables of sustainability.

There are indications for the policy makers to frame regulations and prepare a roadmap for the mature and the large MFIs. This would help them adhere to the double bottom line, which would further streamline the operations of the MFIs in the long run. Containing operating expenses and controlling the asset quality still remain to be the challenges which need to be addressed with proper policy guidelines.

The analysis of the study focuses on industry classifications, which make it more intriguing in nature given the fact of the varied features like age, legal status and outreach. India being the largest microfinance market in the world has limited studies. Most of the studies in double bottom line are based on a cross-country analysis, which generalizes the individual characteristics. The study fills this gap and adds to the understanding of the double bottom line commitments in the Indian context.