Citywire printed articles sponsored by:
View the article online at http://citywire.co.uk/money/article/a603342
Chart of the Day: banks' poor corporate transparency
Barclays (BARC.L) is the lowest-ranking British company on a global index of transparency in corporate reporting.
Markets
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and a trio of China’s notoriously opaque state-owned banks lie at the bottom of a ranking of transparency in corporate reporting for the world’s 105 largest publicly listed multinational companies.
Financials in the index, most of which are banks including crisis-battling Barclays (BARC.L) – the lowest ranking British company on the index – and part state-owned Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) also rank poorly.
Financial companies' score for reporting on anti-corruption programmes averages 56%, compared with 68% overall; financials’ average organisational transparency measures 67%, compared with 72% overall; and their country-by-country reporting (how much financial data they disclose on operations in individual countries) comes in at just 2.3%, compared with the index average of 40%.
Banks' transparency: Click to enlarge
Transparency International, the anti-corruption campaign group which published the report, described the banks’ performance as ‘poor’.
HSBC (HSBA.L), which features near the top of the overall index – just behind Norwegian energy firm Statoil, Rio Tinto (RIO.L), BHP Billiton (BLT.L), ArcelorMittal and BG Group (BG.L) – appears to be a clear exception, alongside a few other higher-ranking banks.
‘The results of this research indicate that these players are not transparent in reporting on anticorruption programmes, organisational transparency or country-by-country reporting and should be playing a greater part in combating corruption,’ Transparency International’s report states.
‘Where voluntary or imposed regulation fails, investors and civil society must raise their voices and demand greater transparency.’
Sponsored By:
More about this:
Look up the shares
- Barclays PLC (BARC.L)
- Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LLOY.L)
- HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBA.L)
- Rio Tinto PLC (RIO.L)
- BG Group PLC (BG.L)
- Bhp Billiton PLC (BLT.L)
More
What others are saying
Archive
Today's articles
Sipp Investor: cash and fund manager alarm bells by Rob Kyprianou
UK inflation falls for first time in seven months by James Phillipps
FTSE pulls back after reaching 12-year high by Sarah Miloudi
The Expert View: Thomas Cook, FirstGroup and Capita by Harry Brooks
Overnight Markets: Wall Street flat as investors weigh stimulus efforts by Himanshu Singh
Tools from Citywire Money
From the Forums
+ Start a new discussionWeekly email from The Lolly
Get simple, easy ways to make more from your money. Just enter your email address below
An error occured while subscribing your email. Please try again later.
Thank you for registering for your weekly newsletter from The Lolly.
Keep an eye out for us in your inbox, and please add noreply@emails.citywire.co.uk to your safe senders list so we don't get junked.
leave a comment
Please sign in here or register here to comment. It is free to register and only takes a minute or two.