by: Andy George
BOOK REVIEW: Performance of Financial Institutions: Efficiency, Innovation, Regulation
It is rare for a financial text to be written by a Cypriot author yet one of the authors (Stavros A. Zenios) is a Professor at the University of Cyprus.
The aim of the book is to examine whether financial intermediaries operate efficiently on a worldwide basis. Due to the fact that the book is written by two academics, it is a well-researched book with many real life examples involving financial institutions in various countries.
The book is dividend into various sections such as: What drives the performance of financial institutions; Drivers of performance: Identification, Specification & Measurement; Environmental drivers of performance and finally, performance and risk management.
Though the book is well written it is more geared towards persons involved in research in the financial management sector rather than your ordinary layman. Nevertheless there are many useful aspects to this book. I personally found the chapter on “What Makes a Bank Efficient?” very useful and there are other aspects to the book that provide useful data to relevant parties involved in the financial services industry.
Overall I believe the text is useful for students carrying out an MBA on finance since it provides useful data on the efficiency of financial institutions. I also believe the financial services organisations should certainly include this book in their libraries and take note of its contents.