Concentration Measurement Issues and Their Application for the Slovak Banking Sector

In the paper, several indicators to measuring concentration applied commonly in the sphere of banking are catalogued and their basic properties are discussed. Their use is demonstrated for the Slovak banking sector over the period of 8 years from 2005 to 2012 in pursuit of two goals. Whilst the first goal behind this analysis is to indicate limitations of these indicators in assessing market structure granularity, the second goal is tied up with identification of trends in the intensity of banking competition in Slovakia. The results are significant from the regulatory point of view and suggest that market concentration in the Slovak banking sector during the investigated period is mild for both the deposit market and the credit market. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V.