Working capital management and bank performance: empirical research of ten deposit money banks in Nigeria

This paper investigates the determinants of commercial bank profitability in oil and non-oil countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using data from 11 countries over the period 2004–2014. Since banks are under no obligation to fill reports to Bankscope database, irregular reporting banks are omitted from the sample and the model is re-estimated using only regular reporting banks, and a comparative analysis between total banks’ sample and regular reporting banks’ sample is provided. Using the two-step system GMM and fixed effects models, the results indicate that credit risk is negative and highly significant when irregular reporting banks are omitted from the sample, particularly in the non-oil group, unlike the oil countries case, which indicates that adding irregular reporting banks to the sample could lead to bias in some estimated coefficients if they constitute a considerable percentage of the total banks’ sample. Diversification is a key determinant for profitability in oil countries. No enough evidence to support the impact of financial inclusion and financial openness on bank profitability. In addition, the global financial crisis has significantly affected bank profitability in oil countries. Several policy implications are provided to the bank management to follow based on each country group.

The recent development of integrated reporting intends to address the limitations associated with corporate reporting practices. This paper aims to examine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between integrated reporting quality and financial performance. Secondary data was used, namely the integrated reports and annual financial statements of South African banks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) for 2010–2014. For the period 2005–2009, only the financial statements were used, since integrated reporting was not yet mandatory. The research design was longitudinal and it combined qualitative and quantitative methods. Descriptive statistics and Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) were used to explore the relationships between financial performance and integrated reporting quality. The results indicate that there is a positive relationship between integrated reporting quality (IRQ) and earnings per share (EPS). However, there is no significant relationship between IRQ and Tobin’s q (Q-Ratio), IRQ and return on equity (ROE), IRQ and return on assets (ROA) as well as IRQ and economic value added (EVA). Moreover, there are no significant differences on the financial performance of the listed banks before and after the introduction of integrated reporting.

The current research aims to explore the impact of corporate governance on the Saudi banking performance for the period of 2014–2017. Though many researchers tested the relationship of corporate governance and firm performance, globally as well as in Saudi Arabia, however, during the literature review, it was found that many excluded the banking industry. This study tries to fill the gap by looking exclusively at the Saudi banking industry. Firm performance is measured through return on assets, return on equity, and Tobin’s Q as the dependent variables. The corporate governance practices are measured through the board characteristics (size, meeting, number of committees, independence, foreign board membership), and an audit committee (size, meeting, independence) as the independent variables. Firm size and firm age are the controls. Panel data analysis was implemented, using both descriptive and multivariate analysis through multiple regression to investigate the governance practices and firm performance. The empirical findings demonstrate that board size, audit committee meeting and bank size have a positive impact on ROE, whereas board independence has a negative impact on ROE. Similarly, board size and bank size have a positive relationship with ROA and board meeting has a negative relationship with ROA. Further, board (size and independence) and bank size have a positive relationship with Tobin’s Q, whereas number of board committees and bank age have a negative relationship with Tobin’s Q. Finally, audit committee (size and independence) and foreign board membership have no impact on the bank performance.