Corporate Governance And Bank Performance: Islamic Versus Non-Islamic Banks In GCC Countries

The literature on corporate governance at corporations and conventional banks is extensive; however, it does not assign proper weight to Islamic finance institutions despite their growing importance in the global financial system. Important questions that are still unexplored to date include: What are the attributes of the corporate governance mechanisms at Islamic finance institutions? and How do their corporate governance attributes affect their performance and risk taking behavior? To answer these questions, we use an exhaustive sample of Islamic and non-Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, in the years 2007 to 2009, i.e., around the global financial crisis of 2008 which represents a natural stress test. We assess the impact of the corporate governance characteristics ownership structure / concentration, board of directors' size, composition, and independence and the effectiveness of the legal system and investor protection of the country on a wide array of bank performance indicators, including profitability, efficiency, asset quality, and risk. We perform univariate and multivariate tests which control for many potentially confounding effects. Our results show that, during the 2008 global financial crisis, the return on assets and operating income-to-total assets were significantly higher at Islamic banks compared to non-Islamic banks in the GCC region by more than 1 and 2.5 percent, respectively. Islamic banks also exhibited a more prudent risk-management behavior and higher solvency than non-Islamic banks. Moreover, consistent with the notion of the importance of corporate governance, asset-productivity at Islamic banks is significantly increasing in family- and foreign-ownership and the effectiveness of the legal system and investor protection, and it is decreasing in board size and insiders. Furthermore, risk-taking behavior at Islamic banks is decreasing in government- and family-ownership and the investor-protection level in the home country. This study has important practical implications. Investors may consider including Islamic banks in their portfolios given their resilience to the financial crisis. Non-Islamic financial institutions may consider adopting some of the features of Islamic banking into their operating models. Policy makers can use our results for better policy formulation and regulation of their financial system.