The Level of Disclosure in Annual Reports of Banks: The Case of Slovenia

Background and Purpose: Many studies have explored the disclosures in annual reports of companies. Annual reports of banks differ significantly from annual reports of other business entities, particularly in terms of disclosed items. The aim of this article is to investigate the level of disclosures and which factors influence the level of disclosure in the annual reports of banks in Slovenia.

Design/Methodology/Approach: We have observed disclosures of all banks in Slovenia for year 2012 and 2015. The factors as used in the study are age, size, the government share, profitability and complexity of a bank. Our disclosure checklist consists of 144 voluntary and mandatory items. Statistical analysis is performed using linear regression analysis.

Results: The average score for banks in Slovenia is near 94 points or 63% of all possible disclosures. The results of analyses indicated positive associations and statistical correlations between the level of disclosure in annual reports and the size of a bank, the share of government ownership and negative statistical influence of the age of bank on the level of disclosure. Our results do not show statistically significant correlation between the level of disclosure and a bank’s profitability and complexity, which is against theory and findings from other similar research. Conclusion: In our opinion, results well reflect the Slovenian banking system and how banks reveal their information. Our finding is that banks in Slovenia provide less information to the public compared to the average companies in other branches or banks in similarly developed countries. The paper’s main contribution is to deepen our knowledge about disclosures in the bank’s annual reports and the answers what are the influential factors of disclosures for banks.