Banks and ESG pillars score: Does cybersecurity policy matter?

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Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between cybersecurity policy and the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) pillar scores in banks, considering the geographical area (European and non-European), the size (total assets), and the profitability (pre-tax return on assets) from 2017 to 2022 by incorporating and building on previous studies. The results show that the data are both significant and non-significant in terms of using a one-way ANOVA approach. Specifically, a significant relationship was found between cyber policy and the governance (GOV) and social (SOC) component indicators, except for major banks. The cyber policy may be responsible for an increase in the environmental (ENV) pillar scores in the European subsample.

Keywords: Banks, Cybersecurity Policy, ESG, ANOVA

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — G.I.; Methodology — R.C.; Investigation — G.I. and R.C.; Writing — Original Draft — E.B. and R.C.; Writing — Review & Editing — E.B.; Supervision — E.B. and G.I.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: G2, M1

Received: 24.05.2024
Accepted: 22.08.2024
Published online: 26.08.2024

How to cite this paper: Bruno, E., Iacoviello, G., & Casella, R. (2024). Banks and ESG pillars score: Does cybersecurity policy matter? [Special issue]. Corporate Ownership & Control, 21(3), 8–17. https://doi.org/10.22495/cocv21i3siart1