Disclosure and transparency of Accounting Information in Banks - The case in Egypt and the UAE before and after the financial crisis

This study tests three hypotheses about disclosure of accounting information of banks and effects on quality of those information in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after the US financial crisis. While banks all over the world were affected by the crisis, the UAE banks suffered huge losses comparing to banks in Egypt. That was the motive behind this study, to examine if transparency and corporate governance practices and tools differ in the two countries before and after the financial crisis and could these tools improve the quality of information released by banks in the two countries to stakeholders. The ultimate hoped objective of the study is to find if there is evidence or not that if banks adopt better transparency and better informs about main policies and decisions undertaken and in an adequate and timely manner, stakeholders would be in a better position to monitor and assess banks' management decisions and hence react as to their interests. Primary findings show support for the research hypotheses. Splitting data to before the world financial crisis and after, show more disclosure about financial items, operations abroad, directors and their remuneration in both countries after the crisis than before and in the UAE more than in Egypt. It was also found a positive association between disclosure and quality of information in terms of the timeliness, credibility it covers. The differences between the two countries could be referred to bigger exposure to international market (financial and trade) and bank having more resources in the UAE comparing to Egypt but not because of ownership concentration which had a weak influence on change in transparency and governance between the two countries.