Abstract
For the banking sector in the EU, the UK is one of the most important countries, since over a quarter of all banking assets in the EU are held in the UK and it is the largest single international banking centre, accounting for 20% of the world's cross-border lending. The UK banking sector has traditionally been one of the most open and it is characterized by a rapidly increasing foreign bank presence. Foreign banks account for 55% of the total assets of the UK banking sector. The objective of this paper is to investigate the performance of the banking sector in the UK focusing on the performance of the domestic banks as opposed to the performance of the foreign banks operating in the UK. For this purpose, a multivariate analysis is performed to identify the existing differences between the financial characteristics of domestic and foreign banks, considering profitability, liquidity, risk and efficiency factors. The data sample covers 26 domestic and 32 foreign banks operating in the UK over the period 1998-2001. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.