Loan loss reserves make up an essential part of a bank's soundness and more generally its viability. An under-provisioned reserve account implies that capital ratios may overstate a bank's ability to absorb future losses. For this reason, both supervisory authorities and investors regularly...

Good bank governance is of vital concern to banks, financial industry and economy. The recent financial crisis has shown that an insufficient governance framework is an important attribute to a crisis. This article discusses corporate governance of Belgian banks: the specific regulatory...