Board Conduct in Banks

We examine private and confidential minutes of board meetings of a majority of Indian banks, and offer insights into the issues tabled and discussed in bank boards. We find that risk issues account for only 10% of the issues tabled with regulation and compliance accounting for the most (41%) followed by business strategy (31%). Only 18% of the issues are deliberated in detail. Examining the minutes of risk management committee meetings, we find that only 31% of the issues tabled are forward-looking. Using a simple model, we infer that bank boards under-invest in risk and over-invest in regulation and compliance.