Determinants of bank risk governance structure: A cross-country analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the determinant of the bank risk governance structure. Using bank-level panel data of 104 commercial banks in 10 ASEAN countries between 2002–2019, we find that the risk governance structure (including audit committee size, audit committee independence, financial and accounting experts on the audit committee, audit committee meeting frequency, risk committee existence, and external audit quality) relates positively to a bank’s scope of operation and monitoring benefit, but negatively to the monitoring cost and CEO negotiation power. However, these relations are different between banks with high and low levels of risk and banks in countries with different institutional qualities. Our findings provide important policy implications for designing a risk governance structure in the banking sector.