Issue #4 (Volume 13 2018)

This study investigates the relationships between debt maturity structure and corporation R&D investment. Using a large sample of US listed firms over the period of 1995 to 2015, it was found that the use of bank debt positively influences R&D investment, whereas the use of public debt exerts a negative impact. However, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) mitigates the information asymmetry such that the advantages of private information from banks shrunk. As a result, public debtholders benefit more from the SOX and turn out to be positively influenced by the R&D investment after SOX. Moreover, bank debt impact on R&D spending reduces over the post-SOX. The results also find that the SOX influences the debt maturity on corporate R&D investment only for large corporations, the effects remain unchanged for small businesses.

Economic growth should be supplemented by an efficient payment and settlement system. Many attempts have been made to improve the efficiency of payment and settlement system in India. Especially the effort has been in terms of promoting digital economy. But the stickiness to payments through currency notes by the people has had a moderating effect on these efforts. The policy shift of Government of India towards demonetization of higher denomination currency notes has given thrust to digital payments. The study hypothesizes that post demonetization, the payment and settlement system indicators would show moderate to high deviation from the volume and value that can be forecasted using the historical data. Using Automatic ARIMA Forecasting in EViews, the forecasted values for the indicators for a period from November 2016 to March 2018 were estimated based on the historical data of the indicators from April 2011 to October 2016. The forecasted values of the indicators are then compared with the actual values of the indicators to see if they differ significantly by using paired t-test. The study finds evidence to suggest that the policy of demonetization and resultant reduced supply of currency notes has provided impetus to the Indian public to move towards digital platforms, and the increased supply of currency notes thereafter has not led to complete reversal of this shift in this change in consumer preference. This leads to the conclusion that through effective policy shifts, consumer preferences can be altered, and the Indian economy could become a less cash economy.

This study aims to examine the relationship between financial inclusion and financial stability in Jordan by using Fully Modified Least Squares (FMOLS) technique. The analysis is based on time series from 2006 to 2017. Jordanian financial inclusion index is developed to assess the level of financial inclusion, whereas financial stability was measured by Jordanian financial stability index proposed by Central Bank of Jordan. The results show a weak significant and positive impact of financial inclusion on the financial stability in Jordan. Additionally, five control variables are used in the study. The results show a negative impact of domestic credit to private sector, income inequality, financial integration, and global financial crisis on financial stability. In contrast, real GDP per capita has a significant and positive impact. It is expected that the findings of the study can be used by policy makers and supervising authorities to realize the objectives of the national strategy of financial inclusion in Jordan.

This study aims to analyze the implementation of mudaraba financing at Sharia banks, to consider the relationship between a principal and an agent in mudaraba financing at Sharia banks, and to explore efforts to optimize the implementation of mudaraba financing at Sharia banks.
This research was conducted at the Bank Muamalat Ternate Branch. The study used a qualitative method of single case study approach. The analysis used is an interactive model developed by Miles and Huberman. Research result exhibits the following:
1) The implementation of mudaraba financing was not in accordance with sharia implementation requirement, because there is still a gap in the income sharing system that causes the contract of mudharabah financing cannot be continued.
2) A principal has more information than an agent, because the agent has limited information especially in terms of that about cooperation instrument (mudharabah financing), while the principal is way more about data on that cooperation instrument.
3) Optimizing the implementation of mudaraba financing is needed by improving mudaraba financing governance. It is conducted by assigning consultants in mudaraba financing. The consultant has an active role and formally is directly involved in the mudharabah financing, but its characteristic only gives consideration and advice to shahibul maad and mudharabah as the key player in the mudharabah financing.

The article intends to evaluate the efficiency and performance of Ukrainian banking system based on two stages. The first stage, when the number of banks was on average the same during that period, and the second stage, that began in 2015 and when the number of banks began to fall quickly up to 82 institutions in 2018. The study is based on the model of dynamics norm of the banking system efficiency for two periods.
The concept of efficiency was used based on the methods of non-parametric statistic to obtain performance estimates. The implementation of a dynamic model, based on the peculiarities of the banking system functioning, allows to obtain a generalized assessment of the economic efficiency of banking activity before and after critical change in the number of bank institutions. The correlation matrix between financial indicators of the banking system activity was created and the dynamic norm for the two periods was calculated. Given the analytical comparison of indicators, more effective period was identified. The general results of the study indicate that the overall efficiency of the banking system started to grow up since 2015.

The release of bank’s intellectual capital is one of the important elements of bank’s annual reports. Although it is not presented adequately in the annual reports, voluntary disclosure of bank’s intellectual capital relatively represents the response to the needs of greater information for the users. This research aims to see the influence of corporate governance on the intellectual capital disclosure based on a case study on private banks in Indonesia. The variables to be examined in the research include the Composition of Independent Commissioners as well as The Competence of Audit Committee and Risk Oversight Committee. The samples were taken using purposive sampling, considering particular criteria. As many as 62 banks are selected to be taken as research samples. The data were analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis method. The result of a partial test shows that the Composition of Independent Commissioners has a positive and significant influence on the intellectual capital disclosure; the Competence of Audit Committee has a positive and significant influence on the intellectual capital disclosure; and the Competence of Risk Oversight committee does not influence the intellectual capital disclosure. Meanwhile, the result of a simultaneous test shows that the Composition of Independent Commissioners, the Competence of Audit Committee, and the Competence of Risk Oversight Committee significantly influence the intellectual capital disclosure.

The implementation of international standards for the bank risk assessment and market risk, in particular, in Ukrainian banking practice is aimed at achieving common standards for regulating banking activities in different countries. This should help to increase the banking sector stability in Ukraine and, accordingly, increase the interest of foreign investors.
The article deals with the methodological approaches to assessing the bank market risk (in particular, SA, IMA and R-SbM approaches) recommended by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in terms of standardization and unification of the normative framework of capital requirements for Ukrainian banks. Considering the analysis results, it was determined that the choice and implementation of an optimal approach in the context of Ukrainian banking practice can be carried out in one of two alternative scenarios: 1) a simplified version of a sensitivity based method (R-SbM); and 2) a recalibrated version of the Basel II standardized approach. In this case, the Basel II recalibrated version is more acceptable for use by banks, since it is most relevant to volume and complexity of transactions carried out by Ukrainian banks.
The obtained results are aimed at improving the existing methodology for calculating the adequacy ratio of banks' regulatory capital (N2), which currently considers only the needs for credit risk coverage, and at refining the methodology in terms of considering banks' market-risk coverage needs.

This research aims to examine the correlation between the Sharia Supervisory Board (SSB) and corporate governance in terms of the performance of Islamic banks’ Profit-and-Loss Sharing (PLS) ratio, zakah performance and non-halal income ratio, and to analyze the relationship between risk and income for both PLS and murabahah financing and the PLS financing ratio. Non-halal income is a bank’s income that is not in accordance with Sharia law. The object of this research was a sample of eleven commercial Islamic banks in Indonesia. The data are collected from each bank’s annual report and corporate governance statement, for 2009–2016. This study uses the multiple regression analysis method. The results show that:

1. The size and educational background of the SSB has a significant and positive effect on the zakah performance (Islamic tax), and has a negative effect on the ratio of non-halal income. The size and educational background of the SSB has no impact on the PLS financing ratio.
2. Corporate governance has a significant and positive influence on the PLS financing ratio and zakah performance but has no influence on the non-halal income ratio.
3. The mudharaba risk and PLS revenue have a positive impact on the PLS financing ratio.
4. PLS financing risk and murabahah income have a negative impact on PLS financing ratio.

This paper addresses the impact of foreign ownership, government ownership, efficiency and income diversification on the risk-taking behavior of banks in Indonesia. This research uses Z-Score to measure bank risk-taking behavior. Z-score proxies probability bank’s loss that is greater than its equity. Despite their profit, bank may suffer financial insolvency when taking too much risk. This study used a sample of 44 banks in Indonesia over the 2011–2016 period with purposive sampling method. Based on the result of the research, it can be concluded that foreign ownership can increase bank risk-taking behavior due to the barrier to entry in the form of deficiency of quality information of the borrower so that it has an impact on the increase of non-performing loan ratio. While government ownership can also increase risk-taking behavior, because banks are used by politicians to pursue political goals that cause banks to take high-risk projects with low profits. In addition, the results of this study also show that banks with low efficiency tend to increase the risk-taking behavior.

There has been an increasing trend in the unemployment rate despite the growth rate witnessed. Monetary policy is presumed as one of the ways to improve the situation. Likewise, the relationship between monetary policy and employment has generated controversial debates in the literature. Though its connection has been extensively studied, however, the implications of monetary policy in respect to time frame perspectives on employment and output have not been widely addressed in the literature. This study provides evidence on shock effects, long and short-run impacts of monetary policy transmission through the credit channels on output and employment in Nigeria within the period of 1981 to 2016 using the Structural Vector Autoregression and Autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL). Evidence from the forecast error shock showed that variations in monetary policy indicators affect output more than employment in the first two periods; however, it affects employment more afterwards. The ARDL results show no evidence of co-integration when output is used as the dependent variable; conversely, cointegration exists when employment is used as the dependent variable. The monetary policy indicators: money supply, bank deposit liability and interest rate are statistically and economically significant with employment in the long run. In the short run, money supply and interest rate are economically and statistically significant. The findings revealed that the Nigerian government can maximize the long-run benefits of monetary policy through the credit channels on employment. Hence, there is a need for policymakers to look beyond short-run gain and promote long-run employment via monetary policy among others.

The effective management of economic security of financial and banking institutions at the application level is not possible without formulating the conceptual foundations of this process in the research and methodological plane. With that, the management system should take into account the specifics of financial intermediaries, which requires the development of specific research and methodological approaches. The purpose of the study is to generalize the conceptual framework for economic security management of banking and parabanking financial institutions as an integral part of ensuring the economic security of the financial market and financial security of the state. The authors propose an algorithm for managing the system of economic security of banks and other financial institutions, and identify the features, advantages and disadvantages of models for providing economic security. It is proved that managing the economic security system should consider the type of an institution, its size, the adequate personnel availability, and financial, information and material support. Consequently, effective economic security management should ensure its high level, and, therefore, partially solve the problem of regulating banking security, the financial market security, and, as a consequence, the financial security of the country.

The objective of the article is to study the influence of political and economic factors on the situation on the world foreign exchange market, substantiate the importance of fundamental analysis in forecasting currency rates. The concept and mechanisms of functioning of the world currency market, its assets and specific features in comparison with other financial platforms are considered in the article. The need for special attention to fundamental analysis during the periods of global political and economic events is grounded. Based on the analysis of the dynamics of the leading world currency pairs in recent years, the period from October 2016 to April 2017 was chosen for an analysis because that period is full of significant events in the world political and economic arena, which are powerful levers of the traders’ behavior, and hence the direction of the dynamics of key currency pairs. These events are as follows:

• presidential elections in the USA;
• two increases of the Federal Reserve rate; and
• the policy of the European Central Bank, aimed at stimulating inflation.

It is substantiated that using the fundamental analysis makes it possible to assess the trend and scale of changes in the rates of the world currencies, and in combination with technical analysis is an integral tool for successful trading and forecasting the dynamics of currency pairs. The possibility of using the mechanisms of functioning of such fundamental analysis tool as artificial neural networks and the ways of their application in solving such problems has been considered.

In an unstable financial and economic, political and social context, a number of Ukrainian banks demonstrate downtrends in their profitability, liquidity, and solvency rates. With that, the financial health and the growth vector of the whole banking sector of the country in the strategic perspective precisely depends on the quality of measures taken to ensure the financial security of a banking institution.
The article analyzes the concept of financial security of a bank from the standpoint of protective, dynamic, resource-functional, competitive and systemic approaches. The authors substantiate that the financial security of the banking system as a whole and that of an individual bank is an integral part of the financial security of the country. In addition, three methodological approaches to assessing the financial security of the country's banking sector are identified and described, namely instrumental, system and target-oriented and criterial ones. Based on theoretical and methodological analysis of scientific works and methodological approaches, a system of research and methodological support for the bank's financial security is proposed.

Considering that bank does not always perform its functions to overcome financial constraints and to monitor the company’s financial activities, this study aims to examine the role of bank-firm relationships in the effect of internal finance on investment based on the business cycle. The testing stages started with testing the effect of internal finance on investment, testing the role of bank-firm relationships in the effect of internal finance to investment, and testing the role of bank-firm relationships based on the business cycles. Non-financial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange make the sample of this study, while the data used are the financial statements for the period of 2002 – 2015 sourced from Osiris database. Hypotheses were tested using unbalanced panel regression. The results showed that internal finance has a positive effect on investment. The bank-firm relationships play a significant role in the effect of internal finance on the investment. In the growing companies, bank-firm relationships reduce underinvestment, and in mature companies, bank-firm relationships reduce overinvestment significantly. This study implies that banks run their role in helping to meet the needs of the internal financing. Companies with strong bank-firm relationships reduce the problem of underinvestment and asymmetric information. They also reduce the problem of overinvestment and agency of free cash flow. Banks perform their role in monitoring the financing activities of the mature companies.

“International Financial Centres” (IFCs) such as London or New York are one of several contributing factors toward the continued economic success of their respective countries in the twentieth-century. Other countries have attempted to create their own IFCs with mixed successes. This study examines factors that might predict the appearance of IFCs and the differences in financial scale. Of particular interest is the debate between ‘bank-based’ versus ‘capital-based’ financial systems and how it impacts the growth and success of IFCs. Results suggest that bank-based systems are marginally more effective at promoting and benefitting from IFCs. Stronger financial market regulations are also positively associated with the growth of IFCs and the resulting benefits that they provide to the rest of the economy. Together, this suggests that the optimal policy mix to promote IFCs may involve some degree of government involvement beyond strictly maintaining free and fair financial markets for the private sector.