E-Transparency Of Croatian Banks: Determinants and Disclosure Contents

Banks are the most important financial intermediaries and major providers of institutionalized loan financing in the economic systems worldwide. Externalities of their activities affect the economy deeply. Therefore, regulation of their behavior is of utmost importance for the general public. In addition, national and supranational prudential authorities request various forms and extents of mandatory disclosure. Nevertheless, voluntary disclosure is being recognized by the banks as a mechanism of asymmetric expectations’reduction and confidence enhancement of current and potential both shareholders and stakeholders. Upgrading information availability and updating its quality might be a useful way of reducing the probability of systemic banking crisis as well as a useful tool for improving market discipline. However, the causes and consequences of banks’ disclosure of accounting and other information are still challengeable issues in financial literature. In that regard, the purpose of the paper is to explore the determinants of Croatian banks’ online disclosure of financial information. Bank specific and industry specific factors of disclosure are being empirically examined using univariate and multivariate statistical methods. Further research objective is to compare the volume and the structure of mandatory disclosed information using content analysis. It is expected that banks with higher transparency achieve significantly better financial performance. However, the paper does not empirically investigate benefits or drawbacks of both mandatory and voluntary disclosure. For all the aforementioned reasons the paper might be provide useful insights for academics, students of economics and, most of all, for the general public, especially depositors as major providers of bank funds.