Internet finance development and banking market discipline: Evidence from China

•We investigate whether the depositor discipline works in China.•Bank risks are generally negatively associated with the growth of deposit volumes.•Internet finance development affects the banking depositor discipline.•Market discipline and the impacts of Internet finance change across heterogeneous banks.

Depositor discipline is the only viable and universal source of banking market discipline in China. This paper investigates whether the depositor discipline of banking works in the context of an emerging economy under financial repression and implicit government guarantee, such as the Chinese economy; how banking market discipline is affected by Internet finance development; and whether the impact of Internet finance development on market discipline changes across heterogeneous banks. The results suggest that, in general, measures of bank risk are negatively associated with the growth of deposit volumes. Internet finance development alters the sensitivity of deposit growth ratios to some bank risk measures. For non-state-owned banks, fewer measures of bank risk are significantly negatively associated with the growth of deposit volumes, and the attenuation impact of Internet finance development on market discipline for bank capitalization instead relatively increases. For large banks, market discipline works significantly, except in the case of the bank capitalization variable; moreover, these significant market disciplines are strengthened with the development of Internet finance.