The level of risk disclosure in listed banks: evidence from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study contributes to the existing risk disclosure literature in emerging economies, in particular Saudi Arabia (SA), by examining the levels of risk disclosure in the annual reports of both Islamic and non-Islamic listed banks. This investigation uses a manual content analysis method to examine all Saudi listed banks from 2009 to 2013. This study also develops two holistic risk disclosure indices to measure the levels of risk disclosure in both Islamic and non-Islamic banks. The empirical analysis shows that Islamic banks report less risk information than non-Islamic banks. However, the analysis also reveals that both Islamic and non-Islamic banks report relatively the same amount of risk information regarding the banks’ universal items. Furthermore, the empirical analysis shows that Islamic banks report very low risk disclosure items. The study’s findings have practical implications. They inform the regulators about the current level of risk disclosure in all Saudi listed banks (Islamic and non-Islamic). For example, the findings show that Islamic banks report less risk information than their non-Islamic counterparts. The practical implications for managers from these findings are that in order to keep investors satisfied, banks with low levels of risk disclosure should enhance their reporting practices. This will help investors when making investment decisions. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, no prior research has previously been conducted on the levels of risk disclosure in Saudi Arabian listed banks. Therefore, this is the first study to examine the levels of risk disclosure in the context of Saudi Arabia.