DOES BOARD NATIONALITY INFLUENCE THE RETURN ON EQUITY OF MONEY DEPOSIT BANKS? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIA

This study examines the influence of board nationality on the return on equity of money deposits banks in Nigeria. This study makes use of econometric procedure and data was collected through a secondary source of information. The population of interest for the study comprised the twenty-two deposit money banks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and the sample size consists of nine selected money deposit banks which were purposively chosen based on the consistency in their publication of their financial account up to 2016; and as well based on their equity. The finding shows that the board nationality brings diverse experience and expertise to bear on the operations of banks and it has a significant positive effect on the ROE of the selected banks. It is therefore recommended that the money banks in Nigeria should infuse more independent non-executive directors in the board to acts as checks on the excesses of the executive directors and to counter-balance the influence of the executive directors on the management. Further, the study also advised that more foreign directors should be elected on the board of deposit money banks in Nigeria as more foreigners on the board provide a large stock of qualified candidates with broader experience and diverse expertise which the domestic members may not possess