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Purpose: This chapter discusses the need for climate change risk mitigation and why it is not the responsibility of Central Banks to mitigate climate change risk.

Methodology: This chapter uses critical discourse analysis to explain why central banks should not have the responsibility for climate change risk mitigation.

Findings: This chapter argues that the responsibility for managing climate change risk should lie with elected officials, other groups and institutions but not Central Banks. Elected officials, or politicians, should be held responsible to deal with the consequence of climate change events. Also, international organizations and everybody can take responsibility for climate change while the Central Bank can provide assistance – but Central Banks should not lead the climate policy making or mitigation agenda.

Implication: The policy implication is that the responsibility for climate change risk mitigation should be shifted to politicians who are elected officials of the people. Also, international climate change organizations or groups can take responsibility for mitigating the climate change risk of member countries. Finally, citizens in a country or region should have equal responsibility for climate change. Climate information should be provided to every citizen to help them prepare for future climatic conditions.

Originality: This chapter propagates the idea that Central Banks should take a lead role in dealing with the problems of climate change. This chapter is the first chapter to contest a Central Bank-led climate change risk mitigation agenda.

We examine whether systematic risk of the financial services industry (banks, finance, insurance, and real-estate sectors) declined after the passage of GLBA. This study differs from prior work in that we examine changes over a long period of time (5 years before and 5 years after the Act) and we use the Carhart (1997) four-factor model for assessing changes in risks. The study finds that banks, insurance, finance, and real-estate segments load on the market, size, and value factors before as well as after GLBA (the real-estate segment loads on the value factor only after GLBA). Except for finance companies, betas decline significantly for all the other segments after the GLBA. In the case of banks even their loadings on the size and value factors decline after the GLBA, while in the case of finance and real-estate companies the loadings on the momentum factor exhibits reduction in risk after the Act. Overall, the GLBA had a risk reducing impact on the financial services industry.

The banking sector in the new European Union Member States (NMS)¹ has changed dramatically since the transition from centrally planned to market-based economies.² In 1993, the ratio of average banking assets to gross domestic product (GDP) was 53 per cent, and this had increased to 72 per cent by 2000. However the banking sector in NMS is, however, still relatively small compared to the former European Union 15 (EU-15), for which the same ratio was 140 per cent in 2000. In NMS the level of bank intermediation is also low. In 2000, the ratio of private sector credit to GDP was less than 40 per cent, whereas in the euro area it was 100 per cent. A third distinguishing feature of NMS banks is that foreign investors now dominate ownership. In 1995, 8 per cent of banking assets were in foreign hands, and by 2002 this had increased to 88 per cent.³ In contrast, banks in the former EU-15 are mainly domestically owned or are traded on national stock markets.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on minority-owned commercial banks in the USA.

The authors examine performance differences between African-American (AA) commercial banks and other minority (OM)-owned banks. Also, the authors compare AA bank performance with that of their peer-group banking institutions.

Employing data both before and after the recessionary period of 2008-2009, the authors find significant performance differences between minority ownership categories. For example, prior to 2008, AA banks held a significant advantage over OM-owned banks in net interest income as a percentage of average assets. This competitive advantage was somewhat offset by relatively weak loan portfolios and failure to contain costs. The 2008 crisis served to exacerbate the negatives of African-American banks while their positive differences essentially disappeared.

The focus is different than the previous studies on minority-owned banks. The authors are especially interested in how AA banks have fared – relative to banking industry peer institutions, but also, relative to OM-owned banks.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first and the most important is to examine the efficiency of Islamic banks relative to conventional banks operating in North African Arab countries, in terms of cost and revenue efficiency. The second objective is to assess more evidence regarding the banking system efficiency trend and dynamics in each single country, and to compare such trends among countries included in the study.

The non‐parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to estimate cost and revenue efficiency scores assuming variable returns to scale (VRS). The sample consists of nine Islamic banks and 11 conventional banks.

The results indicated that Islamic banks achieved higher average revenue efficiency scores over conventional banks in this region, while the growth rate of revenue efficiency score of Islamic bank was less than conventional banks. In terms of cost efficiency, the results varied from country to another. The results also showed that both groups of banks were close to each other, with an advantage to conventional banks, which suffer less cost efficiency loss over time compared to Islamic banks.

The very limited data sources (banks' web sites) was was the main limitation faced during preparing for this research. Another limitation was the non‐regularity of annual reports.

Islamic banks are highly challenged in finding investment opportunities/avenues that comply with Islamic regulations, unlike conventional banks that can invest in fixed income securities. There is a serious need for some countries to deregulate their banking systems more, in order to enhance the compatibility and the efficiency of their banking, such as the case of Sudan.

Given the previously mentioned difficulties, decent data set were collected. The value of this paper is the use of nonparametric DEA to analyse cost and revenue efficiences in the countries of this region.

The purpose of the paper is to determine if banks that solved the Y2K problem early created value for their shareholders.

The method of analysis is an event study.

The primary finding of the analysis is that solving the Y2K problem did not create value for bank shareholders. That is, announcements of solving the Y2K problem were not accompanied with positive stock price reactions.

While the paper does not find support for a positive reaction to solving Y2K, it does find some evidence of concerns about banks that were having trouble solving Y2K. However, the sample size of banks with problems was small and therefore we caution readers about generalizing these results.

All banks needed to solve the Y2K problem, but those solving Y2K do not appear to create value for their shareholders. From this we conclude that it is better to buy the solution to a required project than to develop it internally.

This paper is of interest to anyone in a capital budgeting decision making process that includes required projects.

The purpose of this paper is to test and extend a conceptual model of risk assessment in bank lending to SMEs using five German and five UK bank case studies. Derived from research in Germany and the UK, the model postulates that factors in the external, operating and internal environments of individual banks can influence credit-risk assessment decisions.

The empirical data for this paper was collected during face-to-face interviews with five UK lending bankers in June 2006 and five German bankers in February 2007. The timing is important, as these were unaffected by credit-crunch considerations. The sample banks were similar in size and operating in the retail environment in their respective countries. The interviewees comprised lending officers and managers in loan departments. All interviews were conducted using a questionnaire format designed to elicit a commentary on the loan process in a reasonably unstructured way.

Notable differences emerged from these findings compared to the scene painted by existing research. The findings argue that changes in the law and banking regulations have reshaped both German and UK banking institutions. German bank employees are facing ever-increasing pressure as their employers strive to become efficient, streamlined banks with a high orientation towards their shareholders in a highly competitive market. This has a consequence for the emphasis placed on local and community factors. These findings further argue that German banks have moved their value orientations towards the British banking model to simulate the high returns achieved by British banks. German banking culture and state values are deeply embedded into the societal structure (Llewellyn, 2002; Lane and Quack, 2001). The deregulation of German banks has manifested in an adjustment of institutional behaviour, steering towards a shareholder orientation. However, even whilst German banks readjust their strategies, they continue to struggle to “shake off” their original roots and a cultural identity of stakeholder orientation.

This study provides a historical context for the recent developments in public sector reporting and accountability in the financial banking sector in both the United Kingdom and Germany. The paper provided an insight into the determination and interpretation of European regulations.

The main contribution of this paper is empirical in nature. We use data envelopment analysis to evaluate the relative efficiency of 34 commercial banks in Taiwan. Fifteen banks are identified as efficient ones and they are divided into four sub‐groups. Conversely, 19 banks are attributed as inefficient ones and the slack analysis are followed. The inefficient banks can effectively promote resource utilization efficiency by better handling their labour and capital operating efficiency and enlarging bank investment function. In addition, we compare the data envelopment analysis results to the financial ratios and show that a consistent effect cannot be obtained. This is to say that we cannot derive which bank has a higher performance from financial ratio analysis only.

Uses logit, probit and discriminant analysis to test for structural differences between the financial characteristics of interest‐free banks and conventional banks. The analysis extends to various financial dimensions which evaluate performance, namely: liquidity, leverage, credit risk, profitability and efficiency. Covers 15 interest‐free banks and 15 conventional banks. The statistical evidence suggests that the two groups of banks may be differentiated in terms of liquidity, leverage and credit risk, but not in terms of profitability and efficiency.