The author of this article makes an attempt to define the empirical similarity between (17) profitability indicators of nine main Polish banks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and on the basis of it - to establish a canonical set of profitability indicators for these banks. The author defines canonical profitability indicators as the central elements of clusters that include similar indicators. The author postulates that each canonical indicator be a good representative of its cluster and that any two indicators be not at variance with each other. The correlation coefficients between relevant time series were used to characterize the similarity of the profitability indicators. Owing to the above-mentioned method, the author reduces the number of indicators to 3-5. Return On Assets (ROA) and Interest Rate of Total Working Assets are included most frequently in the set of canonical profitability indicators.

Keywords: bank profitability, canon profitability indicators.

  Bogusław Guzik, The Canonical Profitability Indicators for the Selected Polish Banks Listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange - plik pdf; (1.1 MB)