In recent years, financial institutions especially universal/commercial banks across Africa have been faced with forceful mergers and acquisitions. These occurrences impede the level of financial inclusion and reduces public confidence in the financial system as a whole. This study assessed the effect of credit and operational risk on the financial performance of universal banks in the context of the structural equation model (SEM). Data were collected from all the 24 universal banks in Ghana without missing variables and using the PLS-SEM, the results showed that credit risk influences financial performance negatively contrary to the empirical study but in line with the information asymmetry tenant of the lemon theory. It was also found that operational risk influences the financial performance of the universal banks in Ghana negatively. Furthermore, the study indicated that bank specific variables measured by (asset quality, bank leverage, cost to income ratio and liquidity) significantly influence credit risk, operational risk as well as the financial performance of the universal banks positively. We recommend that banks ABOUT THE AUTHORS

This study contrasts empirical studies which had focused on listed bank at the detriment of unlisted banks. In other to enhance public confidence in the banking sector and ensure financial inclusion, this study examined the relationship between leverage and performance of unlisted banks in Ghana. This study examined the relationship between leverage, other moderating variables and bank performance by collecting data from fifteen unlisted universal banks in Ghana from 2006 to 2016. The cross sectional time series research design with the quantitative research approach was adopted for the study. The fixed effect panel regression was used to analysis the variables from the data collected. The outcome of the study showed that unlisted banks in Ghana are highly leveraged with more debt to equity. The results also indicated that the level of gearing for unlisted banks has a positive relationship with the bank performance variables which are return on asset, return on equity and rate of profit. This is attributed to the cost of debt and type of debts that are contracted by the unlisted banks coupled with the efficiency in transforming such debts into less risky asset. The correlation and regression result showed a significant positive relation between firm size and bank performance. The study recommends that stakeholders of the banking industry must be concerned with the utilization of debts effectively and efficiently to enhance an optimal leverage ratio that could stand the risk of highly geared bank in a more integrated financial system. To achieve this, the regulators of the banking industry in Ghana must develop policies that seek to inject more equity funds in the operation of banks; guides in asset management and effective cost control in relation to leverage. This will boast the efficiency of the banking industry in their intermediation role.

It is an established fact that the Covid-19 pandemic had a persistent economic uncertainty effect than health uncertainty. In this study, the researchers examined the effects of expanding sales online on the financial resilience of enterprises in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) during the economic downturn. The researchers measured financial resilience by the extent of sales and cash-flows decline during the pandemic. The researchers collected 4751 unweighted data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey and it Covid-19 follow-up survey. Findings from the bivariate probit model and the predictive margin probabilities showed that most enterprises in SSA adopted or expanded proportion of sales online during the pandemic. Increasing the proportion of online sales exerted a decreasing effect on sales and cash-flow declines and thus improved financial resilience at a threshold of 40% during the pandemic. Large enterprises were observed to be more resilient than small and medium enterprises, yet domestic and foreign enterprises had the same level of financial resilience during the pandemic. For enterprises in Africa to realise the 40% threshold of online sales, the researchers encourage enterprises to invest in advertisement for product legitimacy.

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A bank's financial performance and survival can be threatened when there is an increased exposure to credit risk. On this basis, this study seeks to identify the factors that determine the level of bank credit risk and further estimates the effects of bank credit risk on corporate financial performance using financial data from banks on the Ghana Stock Exchange over a 15-year period from 2003 to 2017. Using the method of 2SLS, it was observed variables such as capital adequacy, operating efficiency, profitability, and net interest margin are inversely related to credit risk. Conversely, bank size and financing gap tend to relate positively with credit risk. Also, anualised changes in inflation tend to positively affect credit risk. Again, it was observed that, increase in bank credit risk negatively affects corporate financial performance which is consistent with Basel accord. Thus, for banks to survive in their industry, critical attention needs to be paid to management of its credit risk exposure.

This study departs from focusing on the level of tax relief utilization by focusing on the factors contributing to the low trends and how utilization of personal tax relief can influence tax evasion from the premises of the Allingham-Sandmo (A-S) theory. This study considered respondents working within the formal sector of Ghana. Data was collected through the use of questionnaire after the stratified sampling technique was used to select 136,131 respondents across service, industry and agricultural formal sectors in the country. The study identified a low level of awareness of the personal tax reliefs and the factors that contributed to this were ignorance of the existence of personal reliefs; frustration in filling the tax relief/returns forms; the cost of assessing the reliefs which outweighs the benefits and avoidance of contradictory personal information. It was also identified that, utilization of the tax relief can result in the prevention of tax evasion. It is recommended that, a sound education of taxpayers in focal areas of the tax system is needed especially in the various HR units during the initial stages of employing staffs. Also, the reliefs should be simple to claim through the use of computerized systems and finally, there should be an upward review of the reliefs to motivate taxpayers.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of monetary policy on key macroeconomic indicators in Ghana. The study used annual time series data from 2002 to 2017, which was sourced from the World Development Indicator (WDI) and the Bank of Ghana (BOG). The data were converted to Quarterly data between 2002Q1 and 2017Q4, which covers a sample period of sixteen years. The study employed the Autoregressive Distributed Lagged Model (ARDL) for analyzing the data. Unit root test was conducted using the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) tests, and the results of the analysis exhibited a cointegration realtionship among the variables of order one (1). Monetary policy changes affected lending rates by (0.32%) compared to the other variables. Overall, the results suggests that monetary policy affects macro economic indicators performance in Ghana. Based on the