Climate change impacts, risks and sustainability disclosures have attracted increasing attention from scholars in various streams of the economics and finance literature towards achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Within the stream of climate finance, the global initiatives for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environment, social and governance (ESG) practices have had important roles in leveraging firms to become more actively involved in environment‐related disclosure, in which climate risk reporting is central to evaluating whether and to what extent a firm and its operations are friendly to the environment. Along with the growth of the UN Principles for Responsible Investing in 2005, one of the most recent global initiatives that has been formed is the Taskforce on Climate‐Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which has considered the climate‐related financial disclosure recommendations of G20 finance ministers. Given that TCFD recommendations have recently been released for a broad domain of players (such as banks, investors, insurers and governments) in various countries (e.g., New Zealand, the United States and Japan), we surveyed the most recent studies on the TCFD by using a conceptual framework for climate‐related disclosures focusing on studies published worldwide. On the basis of a thorough review, we highlight the essential functions of financial markets and also provide the critical implications for different market players ranging from providers to supporters of the TCFD. Our study offers a timely conceptual review of the TCFD which is critical for stimulating sustainable investments, climate finance and enhanced corporate reporting.

The evolution of the COVID‐19 pandemic is highly unpredictable; however, its impacts are limited to neither a single sector nor a single country. This study evaluates the performance and efficiency of 49 Islamic banks across 10 countries during 2019–2020 to assess how those banks can preserve their performance and remain resilient in the aftermath of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Using the conventional inverse data envelopment analysis (InvDEA) approach, we show that because of reductions in their outputs, 31 out of the 49 banks studied would need to reduce their inputs so that their efficiency can remain unchanged. However, we show that only 10 banks need to make such adjustments to maintain their efficiency levels using our proposed InvDEA efficiency model. The adjustment for those 10 banks would help in reducing more inputs, suggesting more cost savings, and improving the overall efficiency of the examined banks, compared with the other 31 banks.

This study investigates the interrelationship among bank stability, profitability, and loan growth in the Vietnamese banking system between 2006 and 2017 using a simultaneous equations model. The findings show the bidirectional links between these variables. More specifically, bank profitability is positively associated with bank stability and vice versa. Loan growth is negatively related to bank stability and vice versa. Also, the findings show a positive interrelationship between bank profitability and loan growth. Nonetheless, these findings suggest the trade-off benefit of pursuing massive loan growth by banks. Nonetheless, our research has implications for bank supervisors, policy-makers, and bank managers.

The expansion of fintech credit around the world is challenging the global banking system. This study investigates the interrelationships between the development of fintech credit and the efficiency of banking systems in 80 countries from 2013 to 2017. The findings indicate a two-way relationship between them. More specifically, a negative relationship between bank efficiency and fintech credit implies that fintech credit is more developed in countries with less efficient banking systems. Meanwhile, a positive impact of fintech credit on the efficiency of banking systems suggests that fintech credit may serve as a wake-up call to the banking system. Therefore, fintech credit should be encouraged by the authorities around the world.

This study investigates the relationship between diversification and Islamic banking systems' performance under the impact of the COVID-19 turmoil using a sample of 24 countries from 2013Q4 and 2020Q4. The findings indicate that the performance of Islamic banking systems is positively associated with sectoral diversification of Shari'ah-compliant financing and income diversification. Although this study confirms a negative impact of the COVID-19 shock, income diversification is found to mitigate the adverse effect of this health crisis on the performance of the Islamic banking systems. In which, Sukuk investment is considered an essential channel for pursuing this diversification strategy. Therefore, this research has important implications for policymakers, managers, and academics.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interrelationship between liquidity creation (LC) and bank capital in Vietnamese banking between 2007 and 2015. Design/methodology/approach: A three-step procedure is used to measure LC. Thereafter, a simultaneous equations model with a three-stage least squares estimator is employed to examine the links between LC and bank capital. Findings: The findings show that large banks mainly contributed a strong growth in LC in Vietnam between 2007 and 2015. The findings also indicate that off-balance sheet activities only played a small role in LC. In addition, the findings indicate a negative two-way relationship between LC and bank capital in Vietnam. The results of the robust checks reinforce the main findings. Practical implications: The evidence shows that the implementation of Basel III may reduce LC and greater LC may increase banks’ insolvency. Consequently, this trade-off between the benefits of financial stability induced by tightening capital requirements and those of enhanced LC has important implications for Vietnamese authorities in strengthening the banking system. Originality/value: This study is the first attempt to investigate the interrelationship between LC and bank capital in Vietnam, in which fat liquidity creation and non-fat liquidity creation are used and alternative measures of LC are also employed to provide robustness to the main findings.