Teklu, Tilahun (Assistant Professor)Yaregal, Bewketu2018-10-262023-11-042018-10-262023-11-042011-06http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/13292This paper examines the performance of banks by classifying in terms of their ownership to explore the effects of ownership and performance. The researcher begin by documenting the extent of, theoretical rationale and measured performance of state and private owned banks around the world, and then assessed the performance of banks in Ethiopia. The empirical evidence clearly shows that state owned banks are superior in performance than privately owned banks, and from eleven ratios used to measure performance seven supports for state ownership and the remaining supports private ownership. In case of growth pattern of deposit, loan and asset, private banks show better trend than state owned banks. Key words; ownership, private ownership, state ownership, performanceenownershipprivate ownershipstate ownershipperformanceThesis