MANDATORY ADOPTION OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING STANDARDS (IFRS) BY NIGERIAN LISTED BANKS: ANY IMPLICATION FOR VALUE RELEVANCE?

Abstract

In January 2012 Nigeria adopted IFRS. Sequel to that adoption, the pressing question agitating the minds of researchers as well as other stakeholders in financial reporting is whether the mandatory adoption of IFRS has given rise to an enhanced value relevance (or quality) of financial information in Nigerian banks. To address this, we relied on the fundamental Ohlson (1995) model which has also been severally employed in prior researches. By means of criterion based sampling technique, we selected 13 out of the 21 listed commercial banks in Nigeria for our study. Our findings revealed that Book Value of Equity (BVE) and Earnings per Share (EPS) are positively associated with share price. We also observed that BVE is less associated with share price than EPS. We recommended inter alia that sustainable development of Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) can be boosted through credible financial information. When the integrity of the Financial Report is being threatened, investors (both local and international) are likely to shun or shrink from investing adequately in Nigerian Capital Market.