ABSTRACT

The study examined the effect of Audit Committee Characteristics on Financial Reporting Quality of listed Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria (2006-2017). The increased cases of financial reporting manipulation and scandals reported in the Nigerian banking industry have more than ever casts doubts about their financial reporting quality. The effectiveness of the audit committee over the years seems not to be fully actualized owing to some financial scandals being experienced by organizations despite audit committees being in full operations. This study used cross-sectional data sourced from the financial report of selected Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria. A Five-variable model was developed with the variables, Audit Report Lag, Audit committee independence, Audit committee frequency of meeting, Audit committee size and Audit committee financial expertise. Multiple Regression analysis with an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation technique was employed and the fixed effect model was selected with the aid of the Haussman test. Given the outcome of the empirical analysis, findings revealed that Audit committee independence; Audit committee frequency of meeting, Audit committee size had positive and significant effect on financial reporting quality, while Audit committee financial expertise has a negative and significant effect on financial reporting quality. The study amongst other thing recommended that to effectively improve audit committee independence the regulatory authority should up its monitoring of the banks to ensure that banks Chief Executive Officers do not influence the election/appointment of member of the audit committee, and the regulatory authorities should make efforts to increase the minimum number of meetings to be held by the audit committee