Banking regulations and financial reporting

Congratulations to Dr Lemonia Marina Rempoutsika following the successful defence of her thesis in a viva in March 2022. Examiners were the School of Management's Dr Christian Engels and Professor Donal McKillop of Queen's University Belfast Management School.

Dr Rempoutsika's doctoral research analysed the links between financial industry regulation and the reporting quality of commercial banks and credit unions. She conducted three empirical studies using large datasets of banks and credit unions located in the USA. The studies investigated and considered the impact of:

• separation of audit and risk committees mandated by Section 165h of the Dodd-Frank Act on banks' financial reporting quality
• imposition of minimum capital requirements on credit unions' financial reporting quality
• deposit insurance regulation on credit union financial reporting quality.

Key findings included:

• The separation of audit and risk committees leads to an improvement in financial reporting quality.
• Credit unions which increase their capital to meet the minimum capital requirements improve their financial reporting quality.
• Credit unions affected by the increase in deposit insurance coverage increase discretionary loan loss provisions, leading to a deterioration in financial reporting quality.

Dr Rempoutsika is a St Leonard's Associate of the University of St Andrews and has taken up a post as Lecturer in Accounting and Finance at the Open University Business School.