Narrow Results

Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) assist businesses with decision-making. They help companies create new products and processes or improve existing ones. As the amount of data grows exponentially and data storage and computing power costs drop, AI is predicted to have great potentials for banks. This chapter discusses the implications of big data and AI for the banking industry. First, we provide background on big data and AI. Second, we identify areas in which banks can benefit from big data and AI, and evaluate their applications for the banking industry. Third, we discuss the implications of big data and AI for regulatory compliance and supervision. Last, we conclude with the limitations and challenges facing the use of big-data based AI.

We examine the determinants of bank capital structure using a large sample of banks in the world. We find that banks determine their capital structure in much the same way as non-financial firms, except for growth opportunities. We also provide evidence that country-level factors, such as the legal system, bank-specific factors and economic conditions influence banks’ capital decisions through their impacts on bankruptcy costs, agency costs, information asymmetry and liquidity creation. The results show that, besides the direct effects, there are indirect impacts of country-level factors on the decision of bank capital. Our results have potential policy implications for the on-going regulatory reform.

This paper conducts a more in-depth study of employee performance to connect with compensation and job satisfaction and the work environment of employees in PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. (BRI). This research was conducted at PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. operating in Indonesia. The research population was all employees of the Branch Offices of PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. spread over in Sumatera, Jawa, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali and Jayapura. The sample was collected using Proportional Random Sampling Stratified from six locations spread throughout Indonesia. Considering the wide area, the sampling technique is adjusted to the area, so sampling is based on the island as a sub-population. The sample of this study was 212 employees. This amount has met the minimum sampling requirements if using the Generalised Structural Component Analysis (GSCA) method. Compensation does not directly affect employee performance. Working environment directly influences the employee performance in PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. There is an influence of compensation and working environment on job satisfaction and employee performance in PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. The leader of PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. should improve employees’ performance by taking into account the improvement of compensation which includes the suitability of wages and salaries, incentives, benefits and facilities with their performance.

Corporate governance carries strategic importance and should be addressed correctly by decision-makers. Corporate finance literature suggests that diverse boards are a part of good corporate governance practice. However, it is not clear how diverse board characteristics might affect innovation and innovation search strategies. Utilising the data from 25 banks listed in the UAE stock exchanges, this study evaluates the impact of boardroom diversity on firm innovativeness both before and after the drop in the oil prices. The results show that although gender and education do not significantly affect innovativeness of banks, having more experienced and independent board members enhances the innovation. The effect of experienced board members on innovation is more pronounced during the oil price drop period, whereas the effect of independent board members decreases after the drop in the oil prices.

This work discusses some of the critical aspects of bank corporate governance in the European Union. Enhancing sound corporate governance practices has become one of the major concerns in the supervisory authority’s agenda and one of the critical features to evaluate banks’ stability. The global rethinking about corporate governance rules has translated into a stronger focus on board diversity for EU banks. The existing literature and sound corporate governance practices support the view that different types of board members may bring different capabilities to their banks. Even if board diversity may add complexity to the functioning of the board, the advantages it brings are of utmost importance in the challenging environment banks are facing. This work highlights the fragmentation of the EU corporate governance rules as banks have to comply with 27 sets of different regulations and codes. This complexity should not be ignored, as member states’ specificities, legal systems, and a more general openness to diversity influence the effect reforms may have on banks’ performance and stability.

This paper evaluates how the risks associated with mergers and acquisitions (M&As) affect Bank Holding Companies’ (BHCs) levels of insolvency risk. Bank insolvency is hypothesized to be affected by M&As directly and indirectly through banks’ market risk, geographical diversification, and activity diversification. The relationship between bank insolvency, diversification, and market risk is estimated as a system using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The key finding is that M&As erode banks’ insolvency, both directly and indirectly through the effects associated with their geographical diversification.

This study explores the status of the online risk disclosure practices on the listed Islamic banks in the Egyptian exchange market. Manual content analysis was employed as a research approach to examine the practices of the online risk disclosure for the three listed Islamic banks in Egypt, and based on a prior study, it developed a risk index composed of 10 main categories and a total of 61 sub-items as a research tool. The empirical analysis presents that all listed Islamic banks in the Egyptian exchange market have websites and all these banks report risk information in their published online reports (full annual report and full financial report). Furthermore, the results provide confirmatory evidence that there is a high adherence by all listed Islamic banks in Egypt to the mandatory risk disclosure requirements on their websites, while there is a low level of voluntary risk disclosure on the websites of these banks as well; in addition, the study pointed out that Al Baraka Bank has the highest average (67.2%) of online risk disclosure level among all Islamic banks, followed by Faisal Islamic Bank with an average of 65.5%, and finally, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank came in the last place with an average of 60.6%. What’s more, the yielded data show that the total average level of online risk disclosure of the Islamic listed banks in Egypt is 64.5%. Finally, the results of this study outline that there are no significant differences between the levels of online risk disclosure at the level of the common categories for all Islamic listed banks in Egypt. The limitations of this study are as follows: the way the content analysis was conducted; in its reliance on the websites and the published online reports for examining risk disclosure information; due to its focus on the financial and non-financial risks; due to its focus on Islamic listed banks in Egypt; and due to its focus on the context of the Egyptian environment.