We empirically examine whether banks' dividend decisions are influenced by their degree of opacity and ownership structure. We find that banks with concentrated ownership structure pay lower dividends when they have high degrees of opacity, in line with the hypothesis that majority shareholders...

The regulatory framework in Europe does not prevent banks from taking large or controlling equity stakes in non-financial firms, potentially contributing to higher levels of bank risk and financial instability. Using a panel of European commercial banks for the period 2004-2008, we find that...