In this study, we utilise a new, non-parametric efficiency measurement approach which combines the semi-oriented radial measure data envelopment analysis (SORM-SBM-DEA) approach for dealing with negative data (Emrouznejad et al., 2010) with the slacks-based efficiency measures of Tone (2001, 2002) to analyse productivity changes for Indonesian banks over the period Quarter I 2003 to Quarter II 2007. Having constructed the Malmquist indices, using data provided by Bank Indonesia (the Indonesian central bank), for the banking industry and different bank types (i.e., listed and Islamic) and groupings, we then decomposed the industry’s Malmquist into its technical efficiency change and frontier shift components. Finally, we analysed the banks’ risk management performance, using Simar and Wilson’s (2007) truncated regression approach, before assessing its impact on productivity growth. The first part of the Malmquist analysis showed that average productivity changes for the Indonesian banking industry tended to be driven, over the sample period, by technological progress rather than by frontier shift, although a relatively stable pattern was exhibited for most of the period. However, at the beginning of the considered period, state-owned and foreign banks, as well as Islamic banks, exhibited volatile productivity movements, mainly caused by shifts in the technological frontier. With respect to the risk management analysis, most of the balance sheet variables were shown to have had the expected impact on risk management efficiency. While the risk management decomposition of technical efficiency change and frontier risk components demonstrated that, by the end of the sample period, the change in risk management efficiency and risk management effects had the same dynamic pattern, resulting in the analogous dynamics for technical efficiency changes. Therefore, a strategy based on the gradual adoption of newer technology, with a particular focus on internal risk management enhancement, seems to offer the highest potential for boosting the productivity of the financial intermediary operations of Indonesian banks.
