Effect of Ethical and Professional Values on the Operations of Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria
This study examined the effect of ethical and professional values based on the socio-economic factors affecting banking operations of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Prior studies have not dwelt or investigated extensively on ethical and professional practices by banks especially in developing world like Nigeria. Hence, there is the need to evaluate the effectiveness, enforcement and compliance by banks of the codes of ethics and professionalism for the banking industry in Nigeria. Mixed research design method employed with the aid of primary data collected through close ended structured questionnaire from 200 respondents purposively selected from the commercial deposit money banks and three core regulatory institutions for the industry. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data and the hypothesis tested with Pw and Kendall’s Tau Correlation Coefficients. Findings revealed that the level of ethical and professional competence have not improved as expected. Furthermore, a weak correlation was established between the socio-economic factors and the level of ethical and professional banking practice in the industry with -0.3135 and -0.2510.It was concluded by the study that commercial banks in Nigeria have not improved significantly on adherence to the ethical and professional codes of conducts of the profession. Compliance to shared ethical and professional values have not been adequate among the banks. The study revealed that poor socio-economic business environment, the obsolete code of ethics, ineffective communication system, poor employment methods and inadequate training were responsible for the poor ethical and moral standard. It was suggested that adequate training facilities and funding must be considered by banks as a means of enhancing ethical and professional values in the Nigerian banking system and in deed to other businesses.
