Enhancing Corporate Performance in Uzbekistan's State-Owned Banks through an Integrated Governance–Performance Monitoring Framework

The paper contributes to the literature by proposing an integrated monitoring framework of governance and performance for Uzbekistan's state-owned banking sector. The proposed framework provides an effective way to monitor financial performance, operational efficiency, risk-stability and ESG disclosure readiness based on corporate governance principles and performance-management practices. The paper is empirically driven with data covering 13 state-owned banks and other banks on their transition path in 2017-2024. It investigates the evolution of profitability, operational efficiency and financial structure in Uzbekistan's banking sector before and during the banking reforms using descriptive analysis and pairwise comparisons of average values over each period at the bank level. The results show that the average loan-to-assets ratio increases from 46.77% to 60.49% (p = 0.0008), and the average pre-tax return on equity decreases from 13.78% to 4.91% (p = 0.042). The paper concludes with important lessons from these trends as it emphasizes the significance of the monitoring of banking growth together with profitability and financial stability. While it provides an empirically informed governance-monitoring approach, it is subject to institutional testing on its practical effectiveness.