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Typical accounting firms offer three types of accounting services to their clients: accounting and auditing (AA), tax (TAX) and management advisory services (MAS). Each accounting service has a different revenue persistence. Moreover, revenue persistence is affected by exogenous events such as new regulations (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley Act [SOX] in 2002) and market conditions (e.g. the financial crisis of 2008). This paper aims to examine the revenue persistence of accounting services and how it is affected by SOX and the financial crisis.

Using 742 firm-year observations from 100 of the largest US accounting firms from 1999 to 2015, this paper examines whether revenue from AA, TAX and MAS has different degrees of persistence and how SOX and the financial crisis in 2008 change the revenue persistence of each accounting service.

This paper finds that MAS generates more persistent revenue than AA and TAX. SOX enhances the revenue persistence of MAS. The financial crisis makes revenue from AA less persistent than during the pre-financial crisis period.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the revenue persistence of accounting services and the impact of exogenous events such as SOX and the financial crisis of 2008.

The impact of developments in information technology upon the range of products which can be profitably marketed by financial services firms is here considered. Underlying the analysis is a conception of financial institutions such as banks as marketing inter‐mediaries, providing information and distributive services along with the financial products. Two routes are compared which are used by financial institutions to provide an expanded range of financial services: joint ventures and the financial supermarket. The strengths and weaknesses of both are examined.

This paper aims to derive the conditions under which a financial services firm will want to hire a compliance services company and show how much money they should spend.

This paper uses a mathematical model to show the intuition behind many of the compliance decisions that cost financial services firms billions every year.

This paper finds that hiring compliance firms may save banks and brokerages money. However, their advice may lead to an embarrass de riches – whereby the lower compliance costs and higher profit advantages they confer may lead to more regulation. Regulators may furthermore tighten regulation – with the expectation that financial service firms will adapt somehow. This paper presents a fresh perspective on the Menon hypothesis, deriving conditions under which financial regulations help the competitiveness of an international financial centre.

The paper represents one of the first and only models of compliance spending by financial services firms.

This paper provides five potential policy responses for dealing with ever ratcheting financial regulations.

The paper hopefully launches literature on the compliance service industry – and the buy-or-do decision to engage in financial services compliance. This paper finds that efficient compliance can hurt firms, by encouraging regulation. This paper shows how firms can forestall the extra regulation that comes with easier internet and computerised monitoring.

This paper aims to provide an index benchmarking financial services firms against their environmental performance. The paper also introduces a new definition of the environmental risk that fits the current business and regulatory landscape of financial services firms. The Environmental Risk Index (ERI) helps financial services firms review their corporate social responsibility (CSR)/environmental and social governance (ESG) frameworks and address any shortcomings. With this in mind, every financial institution should understand that the Index is not primarily about the ranking, but about the highlighted areas that require significant investment to improve the overall management and understanding of environmental risk. This paper points to the link between being “green” and financial performance. As it transpires, addressing environmental risk serves not only the planet but also banks themselves by bringing in new business, reducing costs and avoiding reputational damage.

The ERI relies on 44 variables grouped into ten thematic vectors that relate to different aspects of environmental risk management. Data for calculating the ERI are obtained by reviewing CSR and Sustainability Reports produced annually by financial services firms. Reports encompassing 2013 have been analysed to ensure objectivity and comparability of the results. A universal approach to all organisations has been taken in the numerical calculation of this index. The variables have been constructed such that they fit a wide range of institutions, from G-SIB banks and international asset managers through to smaller, domestic firms. As it transpires, the efforts to become “greener” are similar for financial institutions regardless of their market capitalisation or international reach.

As far as the general ranking for the ERI is concerned, the range between the first and the last bank equals 524 points. With the maximum of 1,000 points that could be achieved in the ranking, the average score is 633 points and over 50 per cent of the banks have scored above the average. As it transpires, European banks outperform institutions from other regions with the average ERI score of 700. Banks repressing the Middle East region lag behind in their environmental performance. Interestingly, ERI scores and revenue figures are almost uncorrelated for large banks. This proves that any bank, despite its global presence and revenue, can develop similar environmental risk initiatives. The empirical analysis of the index results and revenue figures suggest that the revenue is related to the environmental performance. In other words, it is profitable to become “greener”. For every point in the ERI score gained, the revenue should increase slightly by a factor of 0.02.

This paper cuts through the environmental jargon, extensive literature review on environmental issues, socio-political issues and scientific study to deliver a clear picture of what needs to be done in the area of the environmental risk for financial services firms to reduce costs, increase business, improve reputation, address certain regulatory initiatives, strengthen the environmental and social governance and become more environmentally responsible.

This paper, in a pioneering attempt, has presented the ERI encompassing financial services firms. At this point, the paper serves as a benchmarking tool for financial institutions willing to compare their “green” status. Looking at environmental risk has become an important part of the journey towards carefully managing business processes to generate a positive image. The importance of environmental risk is further underscored by investors, shareholders and regulators taking an increasing interest in banks’ activities. With this in mind, financial services firms need to scrutinise their operations with a particular focus on the quality of management in terms of people, environment and processes.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the financial industry is in need of innovation to increase stability and improve quality of services. The purpose of this paper is to explore internal barriers that influence the effectiveness of projects within large financial services firms focussing on potentially disruptive and radical innovations. While literature has generally focused on barriers within traditional technology and manufacturing firms, few researchers have identified barriers for these type of firms.

A framework of internal barriers was developed and validated by means of an explorative case study. Data were collected at a European bank by exploring how innovation is organized and what barriers influence effectiveness of eight innovation projects.

Six items were identified as key barrier for potentially disruptive and radical innovations (e.g. traditional risk-avoidance focus, and inertia caused by systems architecture). As such, in the sample these were more important than traditionally defined barriers such as sources of finance, and lacking exploration competences.

Based on a small number of projects within one firm, the results highlight the need for more in-depth research on the effects of barriers and how barriers can be overcome within this industry.

The results show that there is a discrepancy between the societal demand for radical change within the financial industry and the ability of large financial services firms to innovate. The study identifies which unique internal barriers hamper potentially disruptive and radical innovation in large financial services firms.

This paper aims to provide a review of literature directions regarding the potential impact of fintech operators on the financial services market globally. This paper reviews the literature to identify possible benefits or challenges that fintech firms can have for the traditional banking system.

This paper is based on a review of published research papers related to fintech and digital finance. The Scopus database, SSRN database and google scholar were used to find relevant research papers. The final sample included impactful papers about the effect of fintech activities on the banking and financial services industry.

The current paper indicated that while fintech firms would take some market share away from banks, it is not expected that fintech firms would substitute banks. However, banks are required to accelerate their adoption of innovations and advanced technology to compete with fintech firms. It is also proposed that strategic partnerships and cooperation could happen between banks and fintech companies in a way that benefits both sides.

The present paper adds to the understanding of the effect of the fintech firms’ growth on the banking industry in light of the emerging opportunities and threats for the financial sector. The paper also provides guidance for fruitful research on the impact of fintech activities on social and economic welfare in the future.

It is widely evident that trust and commitment are important pillars for strengthening the relationship between financial service firms and their customers. However, it has not been explored how the service quality, perceived cost and role of agents are important for financial service firms. To overcome this gap, this study aims to investigate the role of service quality, perceived cost and the role of agents as the commitment–trust factors in the financial insurance service (Takaful) in Malaysia, enhancing customer satisfaction.

The study follows a quantitative design in which primary data was collected using a survey instrument. The measurement instrument was adapted from the previous research, and data were collected from 264 customers of the Takaful financial service organizations in Malaysia. The data were analyzed using variance-based structural equational modeling in Smart-PLS software.

This research has revealed several useful insights that demonstrate a significant impact on service quality, perceived cost and the agents’ role in forging close relationships with their customers. Corporate image has a moderating role in relationships and has significantly impacted takaful insurance companies. The results imply that regardless of the corporate image of the financial service organizations, customers are concerned about the prices and the quality of the agents’ services.

In this study, only the predictors such as service quality, perceived costs and agents’ roles as trust–commitment factors were examined to determine customer satisfaction. Other investigations are highly recommended, such as value co-creation in takaful, takaful customer experience and takaful trust. This study offers insights to takaful insurance companies on how to keep up a positive corporate image, which will boost their trust–commitment factors and ultimately increase customer satisfaction.

By presenting commitment–trust factors and company image in an identifiable framework, the current study has expanded the discussion on takaful financial insurance services. The methodology is developed and rigorously tested to gauge customer satisfaction in takaful financial service organizations’ context.

This paper argues that when corporate social responsibility (CSR) is conceptualised pragmatically as a response by businesses to society's concerns it acts as an element of structural change with implications for the strategies of firms and ultimately for industry structure. Furthermore, industry specific aspects of CSR are important and governmental influences and financial regulation provide an added dimension to the impact of CSR on the financial services industry. As an element of structural change, CSR acts as an environmental discontinuity and forces firms to realign their positions within their operating environment. A structural change paradigm is developed to examine trends which are emerging within retail banking as a result of CSR. In the UK retail banking sector, the impact of CSR is increasingly manifest in the efforts to create a competitive advantage out of CSR strategies, the growing prominence of mutual financial institutions in government policy and collaborative efforts between a range of financial institutions.

Do financial services needs depend on the firm size? To highlight the impact of different categories of financial services on firm performance, we establish a correspondence between financial services and firms' performance classified according to their size, controlling with the determinants of firm performance and the obstacles that hinder the development of each category of firm.

We have mobilized microeconomic data on 78,629 firms stratified by size and covering 135 countries, extracted from the Enterprise Surveys database. A two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression analysis with instrumental variable modeling is used.

Our empirical results show that a firm's financing behavior differs according to its size. For micro and small firms, the availability of internal financing has a positive impact on their performance. For medium-size firms, the use of debt stimulates firm performance. For large firms, the positive effect of debt diminishes as the level of debt increases, which leads this category of firms to increase their capital. We complemented our study by exploring the issue of whether barriers to firm performance differ by size. Our results bring a support to the idea that medium-size firms suffer more than micro, small, and large firms. The size of this category of firms does not allow them to operate in the informal sector as micro and small firms do, and does not allow them to influence political authorities to operate in their favor as large firms do.

Previous studies have focused on investigating the effects of access to finance and/or financing constraints on firm's performance, neglecting the issue of identifying which financial services have the most impact on firm performance depending on firms' size. This study fills the gap in the literature in two main ways. First, we identify the financial services that have the most impact on firm performance using firm-level data covering 78,629 firms by size (micro, small, medium, and large). Second, we investigate the different barriers to firm performance by size.

The purpose of the paper is to offer an analytical framework for the Treating Customers Fairly initiative of the Financial Services Authority. The TCF agenda is set in the context of theory of consumer behaviour. The central theme is that retail financial transactions are fundamentally different from most other economic transactions made by retail consumers and to an extent that means the consumer needs to have Trust and Confidence in the products purchased and the suppliers of financial products and services. A distinction is made between different types of products and also between the degree of need for Trust and the extent to which the consumer actually does have Trust and Confidence when making decisions. The inculcation of Trust and Confidence needs to become a central strategic issue in financial firms and can be addressed by initiatives of collective self regulation rather than more prescriptive regulation.