In the last two decades, corporate governance has had its “shining era of research”, especially in developed countries, where good management, transparency, and reaching the investors’ basis meant a huge deal for big corporations. Without reducing the importance of the subject, such issues have reached the developing countries a bit later in time, and investigation on the matter has been not so extensive, especially due to the lack of proper legal framework and real data. Yet corporate governance is reaching an interest lately in emerging markets, like Albania which aspires to be in the Union, and due to the “new normality” in the management style, which requires a re-adjustment of business structures. This paper attempts to determine the role that board size and board independence as corporate governance variables have in a company’s performance, measured by the board of directors’ characteristics. Even though at a very initial stage of its development, the insurance industry in Albania has applied certain corporate governance structures, mainly because insurance companies are part of international groups. As the insurance industry is integrated into the wider financial services and nowadays is getting more important in the local service-based financial market, understanding the factors affecting its profitability becomes important too. The results of this study show that there is a negative relationship between board size and corporate performance, while there is a positive relationship between board independence and corporate performance. Read more

As part of the credit risk management process of financial institutions, the non-performing loans (NPLs) ratio remains one of the essential components that distinguishes the well-managed assets of a bank. In this paper, we aim to empirically forecast the level of non-performing loans (NPL) including afflicted periods like the COVID-19 ­pandemic using a seasonal ARIMA model. Our analysis is based on the NPLs level observed in the Albanian banking system between December 2015 and December 2022. The results indicate that the seasonal ARIMA (0,1,1)x(2,2,2)12 is the appropriate model that can be applied to predict the monthly level of NPLs. The results also reveal that the expected average monthly ratio of NPLs remains stable, with a slight decrease until the end of 2023. Efforts to be proactive rather than reacting post-factum involve using mechanisms and forecasting models to define non-performing loan ratios and better manage them. This paper considers significant implications in credit risk management in terms of developing actions to manage the magnitude of non-performing loans throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.­ Read more