Table 2.

Correlation matrix

	Total loans change	Size	Profitability	Credit risk	Efficiency	Capital	Economic conditions (GDP growth)	Economic conditions (Bank rate)
Total loans change	1.00
Size	− 0.12	1.00
Profitability	0.31	0.02	1.00
Credit risk	− 0.23	0.20	− 0.39	1.00
Efficiency	0.07	− 0.16	0.16	0.08	1.00
Capital	− 0.01	− 0.38	0.07	− 0.25	− 0.03	1.00
Economic conditions (GDP growth)	− 0.05	− 0.05	0.02	− 0.11	0.13	0.11	1.00
Economic conditions (Bank rate)	0.35	0.06	0.20	− 0.27	− 0.06	− 0.45	0.15	1.00

The table reports the correlation matrix of the variables used. The dependent variable is total loans change. The explanatory variables are the following: the size of the bank proxied by the natural log of total assets, the profitability variable measure by the return on total assets (ROA). The credit risk measure is the non-performing loan ratio, which is divided by the non-performing loans over gross loans. The efficiency of the bank is defined by the total cost of the bank divided by the banks’ total assets. The capital variable is defined by the CET1 capital ratio. The macro-variables are the GDP growth rate and the Bank rate for the UK. All values are rounded to two decimal points. Table 1 defines and presents the summary statistics for all the variables