CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND FINANCIAL OUTCOMES: BOARD STRUCTURE IN LISTED DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN NIGERIA

This study examined the effect of board structure on financial performance of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique was employed to select six (6) listed deposit money banks quoted on the Nigeria Exchange Group (NGX) for ten financial years (2012-2021). Board size and Board independence served as proxies for board structure and financial performance was proxied by return on asset. Data was extracted from the audited financial statements of the selected banks. Descriptive analysis, Correlation and panel regression with specification on the random model as the preferred model were used in the analysis. The result revealed that board size and board independence positively influenced the financial performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria. The results encourage banks on continued compliance with central bank regulations on board size and also ensure that majority of the directors remain independent and non-executive when it comes to board independence. On the whole the findings of the study suggest that board structure proxied by board size and board independence plays an important role in the performance of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria and as such the study adds to and advances the corpus of research in this area.