Anti-Money Laundering Disclosures and Banks' Performance

Abstract

This paper aims to develop an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) disclosure index, explore the extent of AML disclosures in the annual reports and websites by differentiating between UAE Islamic and conventional banks, and finally, examine the effect of AML disclosure on UAE bank’s performance using dynamic panel data two-steps robust system estimation. The results reveal that the AML disclosure is at a low level of all UAE banks, conventional and Islamic banks. The results also show that the degree of the AML disclosure on the websites of the banks is higher than in the annual reports. Furthermore, the conventional banks have higher levels of overall AML disclosure than the Islamic banks. The results of the dynamic panel data two- steps robust system estimation show insignificant effects of the degree of AML disclosures on banking performance of all UAE, conventional and Islamic banks.