Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 14, No 5 (2018)

Abstract

Abstract: The 2008 financial crisis that emerged in the western world and later spread to other parts of the globe, including Nigeria, has clearly revealed the negative impact of excessive risk-taking of banks on the real economy sectors. Various regulatory bodies in both developed and developing economies have already responded with Basel Committee on Banking supervision having issued already two updates to their 2006 banks corporate governance guidance. Although some progress in governance mechanisms have been observed, however, it still remains unclear whether these measures have been sufficiently adequate in curbing bank risk-taking and improving bank performance particularly in the context of developing countries like Nigeria. The aim of this study is to conduct a review of literature on the effect of corporate governance on the financial performance of listed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in the post-global financial crisis period. The study is designed to employ library research approach by reviewing previous research work on the corporate governance of banking industry in Nigeria. The paper intends to come up with a research model that will be tested in order to unveil the relationship that exist between the corporate governance mechanisms and financial performance of listed banks as proposed in the study. Available evidence from the literature shows that there is strong linkage between corporate governance mechanisms and financial performance.