Open AccessCORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ITS IMPACT ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN GHANA
Author(s) -
Erasmus Yaw Afriyie,
Germain Kofi Acka Aidoo,
Richard Selase Agboga
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
xi'nan jiaotong daxue xuebao
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 21
ISSN - 0258-2724
DOI - 10.35741/issn.0258-2724.56.4.7
Subject(s) - net interest margin , profitability index , business , return on assets , corporate governance , asset quality , profit margin , finance , net interest income , loan , asset (computer security) , margin (machine learning) , interest rate , accounting , financial system , economics , incentive , capital adequacy ratio , computer security , machine learning , computer science , microeconomics
The paper examines corporate governance and its impact on the financial performance of commercial banks in Ghana. The study employs a sample of twenty commercial banks with one hundred and thirty-eight observations. Data is sourced from the audited financial statements of commercial banks through the Orbis database for seven years, from 2011 to 2017. The study employs return on assets (ROA) as a proxy for bank profitability. Also, the study uses the cost to income ratio, bank size, net interest margin, board composition, bank age, and board size as independent variables. A random-effect and linear regression are applied. The empirical findings reveal that board composition, bank size, and net interest margin significantly impacted bank profitability. However, the cost to income ratio and bank age had a significant negative impact on bank profitability. On the other hand, board size had no significant impact on bank profitability. The study recommends that bank owners appoint experts and an adequate number of independent directors to help reduce conflict of interest and make effective decisions. Furthermore, banks should implement efficient cost-saving mechanisms to cut their overhead costs as enormous overhead costs reduce bank profitability. Banks should periodically organize campaigns on deposit mobilization to increase their assets as huge asset banks have the advantage of diversifying their assets, thus minimizing risk in the volatility period. Finally, banks should develop efficient loan recovery strategies to improve their asset quality, as this significantly impacts banks' net interest margin and profitability.