دور مبادئ الحوكمة المصرفية في الحد من المخاطر المالية والوقاية من الأزمات

Abstract

This paper begins with a deceptively simple question: why do banks fail even when their numbers look healthy? The answer it proposes is that major financial risks rarely appear overnight they accumulate quietly beneath the surface of weak governance structures. Against this backdrop, the study aims to construct an integrated theoretical framework that clarifies how banking governance principles reduce financial risks and prevent crises. The study adopts a descriptive-analytical approach combined with a critical literature review, drawing on internationally recognised regulatory frameworks principally the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS, 2015), the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance (2015), and the Financial Stability Board guidelines alongside peer-reviewed academic literature covering the period from 1999 to 2025. The findings reveal that banking governance operates on three interconnected levels. Internally, board independence, specialised risk committees, and well-designed incentive structures act as the first line of defence against excessive risk-taking. Externally, regulatory oversight and genuine disclosure generate market discipline that compensates for the limits of self-regulation. At the systemic level, sound governance functions as a “gatekeeper” filtering out reckless decisions, an “absorber” of financial shocks, and a “confidence anchor” that shields banks from contagious panic. The study also finds that formal governance structures devoid of genuine institutional culture can be ineffective a lesson clearly illustrated by the 2008 global financial crisis, where the failure was not the absence of governance frameworks but the absence of their substance. These conclusions carry particular relevance for Libya and comparable emerging economies, where banking governance frameworks remain nascent and where context-sensitive regulatory reform is an urgent necessity rather than an academic exercise.