Transparency International (TI) has criticised global banks as failing to shine more light on their inner workings and resisting calls for greater disclosure after the financial crisis.
The advocacy group, based in Berlin, laid out its criticisms as part of a study of the public disclosures of 105 of the biggest multinational corporations, which evaluated their efforts to root out corruption.
"The study found that reporting by banks and insurers on transparency measures underperformed across the board even though opaque company structures played a contributing role in the recent financial crises and in spite of a significant focus on fixing the lack of transparency in this sector," the group said.
Banks in particular were prone to company structures that obscured how revenue was being made. Lenders also were criticised as failing to disclose where they generated profits on a country-by-country basis.
"If country-level financial information is not adequately disclosed, it is difficult to know how operations in many developing countries contribute to local governments," said Jermyn Brooks, who chairs TI's business advisory board.
"Experience has shown that the requirement to report encourages companies to build strong management systems supporting disclosures, and in the process improving their anti-corruption systems," he said.
HSBC Holdings, Allianz and ANZ performed best in the study, while financial services companies including Citigroup, Visa, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America appeared in the bottom half of the ranking. China's banks fared worst overall.
Banks were criticised for failing to disclose more details of their anti-corruption efforts, which are often kept private because many lenders include them as part of their risk management functions. These functions are usually closely guarded for fear of a loss of competitive advantage.
But TI also laid into companies including Toyota, Russia's Gazprom and Amazon.com, which were among the 10 worst performers in the ranking.
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, known as Sabic, was 78th out of the 105 companies studied. Sabic was the only Middle Eastern company assessed.
ghunter@thenational.ae
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The Comeback: Elvis And The Story Of The 68 Special
Simon Goddard
Omnibus Press
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
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