Factors may drive the commercial banks lending: evidence from Jordan

In an attempt to shed more light on the behavior of lending in banks, especially in the environment of developing countries, this study aims at explaining the impact of some factors proposed as determinants of bank lending in Jordanian commercial banks by benefiting from the financial reports of thirteen banks during the period 2010-2016. The study, in order to achieve the objectives and to test the main hypotheses has adopted Ordinary least square model (OLS). The most important results of the study are a statistically significant adverse effect of both credit risk and liquidity on bank lending, while there is a significant positive effect of the return on assets, size of the bank measured by assets, inflation, money supply and growth in gross domestic product in determining the level of lending. In addition, the study does not show a significant statistical effect between investments, the volume of deposits and bank lending in the same time frame. The review points out that because of the negative impact of liquidity and credit risk factors, commercial banks need to focus more on reducing their impact because presence of this impact at the end will decrease the ability of these banks to provide loans and stay in the banking market.