Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance最新文献

Purpose

This study aims to analyze the risk profile of banks whose managers sit on Federal Reserve district bank boards in 2023. In particular, to analyze the impact tha Federal Reserve bank directors have on their own banks.

Design/methodology/approach

Use a matched sample approach to perform univariate analysis and multiple regression methodology to study whether banks whose managers sit on Federal Reserve Bank boards differ in risk profile from banks whose managers do not sit on Federal Reserve district boards.

Findings

There is limited evidence that banks managed by Fed directors have different capital ratios and leverage ratios relative to non-Fed director banks. There does appear to be a slight difference in the growth of Held-to-Maturity (HTM) Securities between the two samples. Specifically, banks managed by a Fed director saw their HTM portfolio grow over the study period, while banks managed by non-Fed directors reduced their HTM securities. Overall, the results suggest that bank directors on Federal Reserve district boards do so with no apparent detriment to the banks that they manage.

Research limitations/implications

Results of this study suggest that stakeholder director relationships are not associated with higher risk-taking at director banks. This study is unique in that, rather than looking at how director ties might influence the firm that they are on the board of, the focus here is how the firm (the Fed district, in this case) might influence director affiliations. Limitations include a small sample size (70 banks, including the matched sample), and data over a short time horizon. Additional measures of risk can also be analyzed in future research.

Practical implications

While there has been much speculation in the industry and in the press regarding the conflict of interest involving bank directors on Fed district boards, this research suggests there is little evidence of any risk differential involving these directors and their specialties to the Fed.

Originality/value

This study involves a unique approach to corporate governance analysis, whereby any conflict of interest that might exist between directors and the firm is studied from an alternate angle – in particular, whether the association with a regulator’s board impacts the director firm’s risk. Furthermore, with the recent events in the banking industry involving the collapse of several banks, including Silicon Valley, the notion that bank management participating on the boards of directors of their own regulator seemed a worthwhile question as to whether this diminished the safety and soundness of the banks that they run.

Purpose

This study aims to examine the Securities and Exchange Commission’s final rule in Modernization of Beneficial Ownership Reporting, which reduced the time for significant public company shareholders to file Schedule 13D (effective February 5, 2024). The authors corroborate prior results under the historic 10-day maximum reporting regime and provide updated academic analysis regarding how the five-day deadline between the “triggering” event, accumulating 5% of the outstanding shares and public disclosure of that event will affect abnormal returns.

Design/methodology/approach

This empirical archival study uses publicly available data.

Findings

The analyses show that changing from a 10-day to a 5-day Schedule 13 disclosure window will reduce activist investors’ opportunity to profit by legally delaying the filing of Schedule 13D. These excess returns for delay exist regardless of the profitability or size of the target firm or the shareholder’s disclosed reason for filing. The authors conclude that accelerating the timing of the disclosure window is an improvement that is in the best interest of the general investing public.

Originality/value

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the only academic study of Schedule 13D filings to include the postpandemic period. As such, the authors establish an updated “baseline projection” for expectations regarding how the Modernization final rule will impact activist investors and stock returns under a five-day reporting regime. In addition, the authors measure and test abnormal returns after considering differences between “triggering” events and filing dates of Schedule 13Ds in the sample rather than grouping all filings. This approach allows the authors to account for the time difference between the triggering event and the filing date.

Purpose

This paper aims to analyze stock market reactions to announcements of regulatory and law enforcement penalties imposed on banks operating in the USA.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper examines abnormal stock market returns around penalty announcements for banks operating in the USA from 2000 to 2022. The authors use a comprehensive data set of nearly 600 penalties to conduct their event study.

Findings

This paper finds evidence of positive and statistically significant abnormal returns on the day of the penalty announcement. However, the authors also observe negative and statistically significant abnormal returns days later, violating the semi-strong efficient market hypothesis.

Originality/value

By accounting for confounding events and analyzing subsamples, the authors reconcile conflicting results from prior literature that have variously shown negative, null or positive stock market reactions to penalty announcements.

Purpose

This study aims to comparatively measure the impact factors of financial inclusion and their spillover effects for Belt and Road countries using panel data from 57 countries in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2021 and relevant indicators from three dimensions: availability, usage and quality to construct a digital empowerment index of financial inclusion.

Design/methodology/approach

A spatial Durbin panel model is constructed to empirically test the impact mechanism of financial inclusion under digital empowerment.

Findings

Results reveal that improving a country’s quality of regulation, technology and residents’ financial literacy significantly contributes to the development of its financial inclusion, while improving its neighboring countries’ financial literacy also boosts its financial inclusion development. This study provides theoretical support for evaluating the development level of inclusive finance in “Belt and Road” countries, promoting the development of inclusive finance and alleviating the problem of financial exclusion.

Originality/value

This study is original as it creates a research paradigm for “Belt and Road” countries, enabling systematic testing and comparative analysis of inclusive finance development. It incorporates traditional and digital services, evaluating them based on sharing, fairness, convenience and specific group benefits. An inclusive financial index is constructed using the coefficient of variation and arithmetic weighted average methods. Additionally, it introduces a more rational analysis approach for the influence mechanism and spatial effect, using an economic geography nested matrix and spatial Durbin model to explore spatial effects in inclusive finance.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate whether various types of risks faced by the publicly listed commercial banks of India and Bangladesh are driven by market power and provides comparative insights from both economies.

Design/methodology/approach

By using the adjusted Lerner index to gauge bank market power and applying the generalised methods of moments (GMM) regression approach, the research delved into the relationship between bank market power and three distinct facets of risk across a sample of 26 publicly listed commercial banks in India and 22 listed banks in Bangladesh spanning from 2011 to 2022.

Findings

The results indicate that for Bangladesh, both “competition fragility” and “competition stability” viewpoints coexist simultaneously across all risk types, supporting a nonlinear relationship between market power and risk. However, in the Indian context, a nonlinear association exists only in the case of credit risk, while the relationship with insolvency risk is linear, substantiating the “competition fragility view”. Apart from market power and bank-specific variables, GDP growth rate has emerged as a prominent driver across all risk categories in both countries.

Research limitations/implications

The filtration of banks is a limitation that might have influenced the outcomes. This study recommends that the Reserve Bank of India encourages further bank consolidation. Along the same line, Bangladesh Bank should closely oversee the growing competitive landscape. Furthermore, the regulators must monitor the elevated levels of non-performing loans to reduce credit risk so as to bolster the stability of their respective banking sectors.

Originality/value

This comparative study is the first attempt to analyse the market power and risk relationship and includes a novel bank-specific variable, i.e. technology, apart from other established variables.

Purpose

In July 2021, the European Commission has proposed a set of conjunct initiatives to reform the antimoney laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regulatory regime in Europe with the main aims to (i) harmonize the AML/CFT regulation and (ii) centralize the authority to a higher degree at European Union (EU) level. This paper aims to assess the reform in light of the EU subsidiarity principle.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a benchmark approach to compare the proposed EU money laundering reform against Article 5(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Findings

The paper confirms that more centralized decision-making at EU level in this policy area is justified, mainly because (i) the policy area is not an area where the EU has exclusive competence, (ii) EU centralized action is necessary and (iii) it also adds value, for instance, for level playing field and efficiency considerations as long as local information advantage will not be lost. As such, the subsidiarity principle can be applied and is an adequate tool to legitimize EU centralized action in the field of money laundering combat.

Originality/value

As the EU AML regulatory reform has not yet been sufficiently discussed in light of the subsidiarity principle, the article is of innovative nature.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise the effectiveness of four derivative exchanges’ enforcement efforts since 2007. These exchanges include the Commodity Exchange Inc. and ICE Futures US from the United States and ICE Futures Europe and the London Metal Exchange from the UK.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines 799 enforcement notices published by four exchanges through a behavioural science lens: HUMANS conceived by Hunt (2023) in Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics and Compliance.

Findings

The paper finds the effectiveness of the exchanges’ enforcement efforts to be a mixed picture as financial markets transition from the digital to artificial intelligence era. Humans remain a key cog in the wheel of market participants’ trading operations, albeit their roles have changed. Despite this, some elements of exchanges’ enforcement regimes have not kept pace with the move from floor to remote trading. However, in other respects, their efforts are or should be, effective, at least in behavioural terms.

Research limitations/implications

The paper’s findings are arguably limited to exchanges based in Anglophone jurisdictions. The information published by the exchanges is variable, making “like-for-like” comparisons difficult in some areas.

Practical implications

The paper makes several recommendations that, if adopted, could help exchanges to increase the potency of their enforcement programmes.

Originality/value

A key aim of the paper is to shift the lens through which the debate concerning the efficacy of exchange-level oversight is conducted. Hitherto, a legal lens has been used, whereas this paper uses a behavioural lens.

Purpose

This study aims to explore the effects of responsible international investment in a least developed country (LDC) on ethics and corruption in the local industry. While investment growth in least developed countries (LDCs) is essential to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, international investment in LDCs poses challenges, including corruption. The authors explore perspectives from relevant stakeholders on the influence, if any, on an LDC’s banking sector, of investment in the LDC by a multinational bank with an environmental, social and governance focus – using a case study of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in Nepal.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted thematic analysis on: focus groups with current and former SCB Nepal management; semi-structured interviews with Nepal banking regulator representatives; senior staff from SCB global divisions; and management of other commercial banks in Nepal.

Findings

Knowledge transfer, organisational enablers and constructive international competition contributed to the dissemination of best practices within the Nepal banking sector, supporting the notion of beneficial spill-over effects of multinationals on LDC host countries.

Practical implications

Practical insights will aid LDC governments, international businesses, investment funds and donor organisations seeking to invest in/assist LDCs with economic development.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this may be the first case study on ethics and anti-corruption practices of a multinational bank in a LDC. Through a practice-driven focus, the authors provide “on-the-ground” insights to better understand the complex nature of corruption.

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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

Findings

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.

Research limitations/implications

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

Practical implications

Enhanced risk governance could reduce RAs, influencing banking policy.

Social implications

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

Originality/value

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

Purpose

Free banking theory, as developed in Adam Smith’s 1776 treatise, “The Wealth of Nations” is a useful tool in determining the extent to which the “invisible hand of the market” should prevail in regulatory policy. The purpose of this study is to provide a timely review of the literature, evaluating the theory’s relevance to regulation of financial technology generally and cryptocurrencies (cryptos) specifically.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology is qualitative, applying free banking theory as developed in the literature to technology-defined environments. Recent legislative developments in the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the UK, European Union and the USA, are drawn upon.

Findings

Participants in volatile cryptocurrency markets should bear the consequences of inadvisable investments in accordance with free banking theory. The decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies and the exchanges on which these are traded militate against coordinated oversight by central banks, supporting a qualified free banking approach. Differences regarding statutory definitions of cryptos as units of exchange, tokens or investment securities and the propensity of these to transition between categories across the business cycle render attempts at concerted classification at the international level problematic. Prevention of criminality through extension of Suspicious Activity Reporting to exchanges and intermediaries should be the principal objective of policymakers, rather than definitions of evolving products that risk stifling technological innovation.

Originality/value

The study proposes that instead of a traditional regulatory approach to cryptos, which emphasises holders’ safety and compensation, a free banking approach combined with a focus on criminality would be a more effective and pragmatic way forward.