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This study sought to examine the interaction between rural bank performance, information and communication technology (ICT) investment, ICT diffusion and financial development.

Data were sourced from the Association of Rural Banks (ARB) Apex and World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period 2014–2020. A total of 122 rural banks were used for this study. The study adopted the two-step system generalized method of moments (SGMM) estimation technique in assessing the interactions among variables.

This study found compelling evidence to support the positive effect of ICT investment on banks’ performance (return on asset and net interest margin). Further, ICT diffusion and financial development positively influence banks’ performance. The results show a positive moderating effect exerted by ICT diffusion and financial development on the impact of bank risk (bank stability) and ICT investment on all three performance measures.

The study focuses on the rural banking sector in the Ghanaian economy, compared to related studies that examine the subject matter for commercial banks. The moderating effects of ICT diffusion and financial development are assessed to guide policy on rural banking development in Ghana.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of off-balance sheet activities on the credit risk of African banks.

The theory about the relationship between off-balance sheet activities and bank risk was used to construct a conceptual model of the effect of off-balance sheet on credit risk in an African context. The accounting approach is chosen by collecting accounting data extracted from the annual reports of 24 private and conventional African banks during the period 2010–2019. Both statistical and empirical studies are conducted. The statistical study aims to give a description of sample banks in terms of off-balance sheet activities and key financial indicators. The empirical study has the goal of exploring the correlations between, on the one hand, credit risk and, on the other hand, off-balance sheet ratio and control variables (bank- and country-specific variables). This study is based on dynamic panels using the two-step generalized method of moments technique to estimate regressions between credit risk and the explanatory variables.

The statistical study reveals that sample banks use moderately off-balance sheet activities; most of them use essentially guarantees and letters of credit, have satisfactory financial indicators and are slightly exposed to credit risk. The empirical results from the two-step generalized method of moments technique disclose that off-balance sheet activities have an intensifying effect on the credit risk of African banks. However, the increasing effect can be minimized when African banks use moderately off-balance sheet activities.

Using judiciously off-balance sheet activities does not exacerbate the exposure of African banks to credit risk. Therefore, managers of African banks are recommended to maintain a moderate level of off-balance sheet activities, especially guarantees and letters of credit.

The findings of this study eliminate the opacity about the effect of off-balance sheet activities on credit risk. Moreover, this study fulfills the huge gap in the related literature by completing the scarcity of recent studies, considering all items of the off-balance sheet, focusing on the African context, describing off-balance sheet activities and financial indicators of sample banks due to a statistical study and estimating regressions of dynamic panels between credit risk and both bank-specific and country-specific variables due to a two-step generalized method of moments technique.

This study examined how economic freedom and its related components, such as open markets, regulatory efficiency, rule of law and the size of government, affect bank risk behavior, focusing on the Japanese context.

The study employs a two-step GMM framework on the annual data of Japanese banks ranging from 2005 to 2020 to empirically test the hypotheses. Furthermore, we also use the ordinary least square method to ensure the robustness of our mainline findings.

The finding suggests that economic freedom increases the banks' risk-taking, thus making them fragile. The results also highlight that out of the four main subcomponents of economic freedom, regulatory efficiency and government size increase bank risk-taking, while the rule of law and open markets decrease banks' risk-taking. Additionally, we examine how the banks' specific characteristics affect the results by creating a subsample based on capitalization and liquidity ratios. Overall, the results are consistent with the baseline findings. Moreover, the results are robust to alternative proxy measures of risk.

The study's findings have several implications for regulators and policymakers. The results suggest that regulators and policymakers should reconsider their strategies for economic freedom to ensure that they promote stability in the banking system and reduce banks' risk-taking inclinations.

Although previous studies have examined the impact of economic freedom on bank stability and risk-taking, this study is the first to do so in the Japanese context, contributing to the literature by providing new insights and empirical evidence.

This study aims to explore the relationship between risk governance characteristics (chief risk officer [CRO], chief financial officer [CFO] and senior directors [SENIOR]) and regulatory adjustments (RAs) in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development public commercial banks.

Using principal component analysis (PCA) and regression models, the research analyzes a representative data set of these banks.

A significant negative correlation between risk governance characteristics and RAs is found. Sensitivity analysis on the regulatory Tier 1 capital ratio and the total capital ratio indicates mixed outcomes, suggesting a complex relationship that warrants further exploration.

The study’s limited sample size calls for further research to confirm findings and explore risk governance’s impact on banks’ capital structures.

Enhanced risk governance could reduce RAs, influencing banking policy.

The study advocates for improved banking regulatory practices, potentially increasing sector stability and public trust.

This study contributes to understanding risk governance’s role in regulatory compliance, offering insights for policymaking in banking.

The reason for concern is the rapid decline in loans to small enterprises which is critical to their performance, compared to large businesses following the periods of banking reformations in Nigeria. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of risk perception on bank lending behaviour to small enterprises. It also investigates the impact of government intervention, consolidation and recapitalization on the relationship between risk perception and bank lending behaviour to small enterprise.

This study empirically analysed (ordinary least square) secondary data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletins, Annual Statement of Accounts covering the period 1992–2020.

The results show that the absence of government interventions and the presence of banking reformations have statistically negative significant effect on bank lending to small enterprises. The findings challenge the argument that generally assumes risk aversion of banks towards small enterprise lending because of small enterprise’s inability to prove their credit worthiness and consequently constraining access to finance to the sector. Instead, the results and analysis from this study found theoretical support for the variation of bank behaviour in lending to small enterprises depending on the status of wealth of the financial system.

A key lesson from this study for government concerned about promoting performance of the small enterprise sector is that regulating and enforcing lending requirements on access to debt financing of the sector is necessary if constraints in access debt finance is to be eliminated. Second, while strategies such as bank consolidation, recapitalization may help strengthen and make financially robust the banking system; it places the banks in a gain position where losses looms to them than gain.

This study challenges the argument that generally assumes risk aversion of banks towards small enterprise lending as a result of inability to prove their credit worthiness and consequently constraining access to finance to the sector. Instead, the results and analysis from this study reveal a variation in lending to small enterprises and suggests that the position of the bank in relation to a reference point influences how risk is perceived by the bank and thus impacts on their risk decision-making behaviour.

Drawing insights from institutional theory, this paper aims to examine whether and to what extent banks have reconfigured their management control systems (MCSs) in response to growing institutional pressures towards sustainability, understood as environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

The authors conducted an exploratory study at the three largest Italian banking groups to shed light on changes made in MCSs to account for ESG issues. The analysis is based on 12 semi-structured interviews with managers from the sustainability and controls areas, as well as from other relevant operational areas particularly concerned with the integration process of ESG issues. Additionally, secondary data sources were used. The Malmi and Brown (2008) MCS framework, consisting of a package of five types of formal and informal control mechanisms, was used to structure and analyse the empirical data.

The examined banks widely implemented numerous changes to their MCSs as a response to the heightened sustainability pressures from regulatory bodies and stakeholders. In particular, with the exception of action planning, the results show an extensive integration of ESG issues into the five control mechanisms of Malmi and Brown’s framework, namely, long-term planning, cybernetic, reward/compensation, administrative and cultural controls.

By identifying the approaches banks followed in reconfiguring traditional MCSs, this research sheds light on how adequate MCSs can promote banks’ “sustainable behaviours”. The results can, thus, contribute to defining best practices on how MCSs can be redesigned to support the integration of ESG issues into the banks’ way of doing business.

Overall, the findings support the theoretical assertion that institutional pressures influence the design of banks’ MCSs, and that both formal and informal controls are necessary to ensure a real engagement towards sustainability. More specifically, this study reveals that MCSs, by encompassing both formal and informal controls, are central to enabling banks to appropriately understand, plan and control the transition towards business models fully oriented to the integration of ESG issues. Thereby, this allows banks to effectively respond to the increased stakeholder demands around ESG concerns.

This paper aims to evaluate whether promoter holding influences a bank’s liquidity in India’s leading emerging market. Furthermore, it also evaluates the moderating role of risk-weighted assets (RWA) on the relationship between promoter holding and liquidity.

The data consists of 24 banks for the period of 12 years from 2010 to 2021. Static panel data is used to analyze the relationship between the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) as the dependent variable, the promoter used as an explanatory variable and RWA used as a moderating variable in this study.

This study concludes that an increase in promoter holding helps to improve the liquidity of Indian banks. Moreover, it also shows that using RWA as a moderating term enhances the relationship between promoter holdings and Indian banks’ liquidity.

This study evaluated the impact of promoter ownership solely on the LCR, a statistic used to measure the short-term liquidity of banks in the Indian setting. Additional corporate governance factors, such as the makeup of the board of directors, relevant ownership concentration factors and external factors with the potential to affect the liquidity position of banks, could potentially be the subject of future investigations.

This paper has both managerial and policy-level implications. It shows that it is advantageous for banks’ ownership composition to include more enormous promoter holdings to enhance banks’ liquidity. Policymakers can, thus, formulate policies to encourage banks to have more extensive promoter holdings.

The impact of promoter ownership on bank liquidity has not been evaluated in earlier research projects. Furthermore, the use of RWA as a moderating variable to determine this link has not been fully investigated, particularly in the context of a developing country like India.

Financial stability has become a focal point for central banks since the global financial crisis. However, the optimal mix between monetary and financial stability policies remains unclear. In this study, the “soft” approach to such policy mix was tested – how often monetary policy (in inflation reports) analyses financial stability issues. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

A total of 648 inflation reports published by 11 central banks from post-communist countries in 1998-2019 were reviewed using a text-mining method.

Results show that financial stability topics (mainly cyclical aspects of systemic risk) on average account for only 2%of inflation reports’ content. Although this share has grown somewhat since the global financial crisis (in CZ, HU and PL), it still remains at a low level. Thus, not enough evidence was found on the use of a “soft” policy mix in post-communist countries.

Given the strong interactions between price and financial stability, this paper emphasizes the need to increase the attention of monetary policymakers to financial stability issues.

The study combines two research areas, i.e. monetary policy and modern text mining techniques on a sample of post-communist countries, something which to the best of the authors’ knowledge has not been sufficiently explored in the literature before.