Is bank creditworthiness associated with risk disclosure behavior? Evidence from Islamic and conventional banks in emerging countries

We investigated if banks with higher risk disclosure scores benefitted from higher credit ratings relative to banks with weaker risk disclosure scores. In addition, we investigated if Islamic banks could exert positive effects on their credit ratings. By employing a sample of 169 banks observed over the period from 2009 to 2014 and after controlling for bank-specific risk characteristics, we documented banks with high credit rating scores were keen to preserve an upper level of credit risk transparency when compared to banks with lower credit ratings. Moreover, the positive association between credit rating and risk disclosure is more pronounced for conventional banks than for Islamic banks. When compared to conventional banks, Islamic banks disclose less risk information due to the risk nature of their businesses, which affect in turn their credit ratings.