Risk governance, risk-taking behavior and financial performance of the public commercial banks of OECD (Presentation at the World Finance Banking Symposium 2020)

Risk governance in banks has evidenced to become growing important theme over the past two decades. The process of risk governance involves identifying, assessing, managing and communicating risk. Appropriate risk governance in place is an essential way to prevent the major and wide negative consequences caused by excessive risk-taking by banks. Risk governance, in turn, substantiate stable, more foreseeable, economic development to investigate the impact of risk governance on the financial performance and risk-taking behavior of public commercial banks of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) specifically during and around the financial crises. Financial performance indicates an overall financial health of the banks where risk-taking behavior is an attitude of the banks towards uncertain future financial outcome. This research paper will cover the research gaps in risk governance which is especially significant during financial turmoil. Two major functions of risk governance that are (i) RC (Risk Committee) and (ii) CRO (Chief Risk Officer) are focused within this research. The RC and CRO are critical functions central to risk governance, however, joint analyses of these functions is absent within the internal risk governance of banking industry of OECD. The RC is essential for a bank to introduce, develop, and execute risk policies and diagnostics. Concurrently, the CRO exclusively steers the RC and risk related matters. Empirics of this research involve characteristics of RC including size, independence and expertise of the directors, and qualifications, experiences, and age of CRO. Initially, three hypotheses will test the importance of these characteristics. A reasonable portion of the data has already been collected. Risk governance regulations vary accordingly from country to country; hence, to standardize the risk governance regulations across the OECD a reference framework of IRGC (International Risk Governance Council) will be utilized. The outcome of this research will contribute to the scant academic knowledge of the subject. Besides that, the outcome has the potential to contribute to regulators and managers especially in their risk-related tasks.