Jonathan Williams

Professor Jonathan Williams


Professor of Banking and Finance
PhD
+44 (0)1483 682039
09 MS 02

Academic and research departments

Department of Finance and Accounting.

About

Areas of specialism

Executive compensation; Corporate governance; FinTech; CEO behaviour; Empirical banking; Financial deregulation; Competition; Efficiency; M&A

University roles and responsibilities

  • Director of Postgraduate Research

    My qualifications

    2002
    PhD Economics
    University of Wales

    Research

    Research interests

    Supervision

    Postgraduate research supervision

    Teaching

    Publications

    Timothy King, Francesco Saverio Stentella Lopes, Abhishek Srivastav, Jonathan Williams (2021)Introduction, In: Disruptive Technology in Banking and Financepp. 1-8 Palgrave Macmillan

    FinTech has garnered the interest of the public, industry practitioners, regulators, researchers and policy makers worldwide. Its disruptive and transformative potential transcends country borders and is having real impact on the way financial services are provided and forcing existing financial institutions to adapt. FinTech can enhance competition and financial inclusion to deliver tailored financial services at more affordable prices and at greater convenience. The emergence of FinTech directly challenges the business models of incumbent financial intermediaries like banks, which are adapting through in-house patents, acquisition of emerging FinTech firms and partnering with FinTech and large technology firms. This chapter provides the reader with a short overview of key trends and a preview of the content in the reminder of the book, organized according to chapters.

    Francesco Saverio Stentella Lopes, Timothy King, Jonathan Williams, Abhishek Srivastav (2021)Disruptive technology in banking and finance: an international perspective on FinTech Palgrave Macmillan

    This book exemplifies the potential of FinTech to deliver important economic and societal gains, such as enhancing competition and financial inclusion to deliver tailored financial products and services at more affordable prices and at greater convenience. The emergence of FinTech directly challenges the business models of incumbent financial intermediaries like banks, which are adapting by developing their own FinTech offerings and partnering with FinTech and large technology firms. FinTech also constitutes both known and unknown risks to financial stability and challenges regulators to evaluate whether existing regulations are sufficient. The emergence of FinTech as a global phenomenon requires insightful cross-country analysis and different perspectives to evaluate its development and associated opportunities and challenges. This book will be of interest to practitioners, regulators and students of this essential enabling technology that is a major component of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

    Jonathan Williams (2021)Conclusion: Fintech—A Perfect Day or Walk on the Wild Side?, In: Disruptive Technology in Banking and Financepp. 283-313 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

    This chapter examines the light and dark sides of fintech through the lens of the supranational agencies responsible for monitoring the impact of developments in market structure on the stability of the global financial system. While fintech is fast growing and offers opportunities to enhance quality of financial services, improve customer satisfaction, increase financial inclusion, support economic growth and welfare gains, the potential exists for known and new risks to emerge and threaten financial stability, economic growth, and social welfare. This chapter discusses how fintech is challenging incumbent financial institutions and identifies benefits and risks associated with the democratisation of financial services. Assessing the effect of fintech on market structures is rendered difficult by a paucity of established data; therefore, the second part of this chapter syntheses relevant data from various sources with predictions from theoretical models alongside empirical and survey evidence to shed light on how markets are evolving and participants are behaving.

    Malek El Diri, Timothy King, Laima Spokeviciute, Jonathan Williams (2021)Hands in the cookie jar: Exploiting loan loss provisions under bank financial distress, In: Economics letters209110098 Elsevier

    We investigate earnings management (EM) behaviour at failed banks by examining the intensity and direction of EM around FDIC-insured commercial bank failures. Our empirical analysis indicates that failing banks engage in EM to a significantly greater extent than non-failing banks. Our results show that failing banks’ discretion over loan loss provisions ranges from aggressive (upwards EM) to conservative (downwards EM).

    Alessio Bongiovanni, Alessio Reghezza, RI Santamaría, Jonathan Williams (2021)Do negative interest rates affect bank risk-taking?, In: Journal of empirical finance63pp. 350-364 Elsevier B.V

    We offer early evidence on the impact of negative interest rate policy (NIRP) on banks’ risk-taking. Our primary result shows banks in NIRP-adopter countries reduce holdings of risky assets by around 10 percentage points following implementation of NIRP in comparison to banks in non-adopter countries. We augment this result by identifying NIRP’s impact on other aspects of banks’ risk-taking behaviour; NIRP is associated with reductions in banks’ loan growth and average loan price (by 3.7 percentage points and 59 basis points) and a rebalancing of asset portfolios towards safer assets. Secondly, we find the NIRP-effect is heterogeneous; post-NIRP risk-taking increases at strongly capitalised banks and at banks operating in less competitive markets that exploit market power to insulate net interest margins and profitability. Our robust empirical evidence supports the “de-leverage” hypothesis which suggests that banks acquire safer, liquid assets to bolster their capital positions rather than searching for value by acquiring riskier assets. We base our evidence on a sample of 2,584 banks from 33 OECD countries across 2012 to 2016, and from models that employ a difference-in-differences framework. •Negative interest rate policy per se does not increase bank risk-taking.•In NIRP adopting countries banks constrain risk-taking preferring safer liquid assets.•The NIRP effect is heterogeneous.•Better capitalised banks increase risk-taking post NIRP.•Banks operating in less competitive markets increase risk-taking post NIRP.

    Philip Molyneux, Alessio Reghezza, Chiara Torriero, Jonathan Williams (2021)Banks' noninterest income and securities holdings in a low interest rate environment: The case of Italy, In: European Financial Management27(1)pp. 98-119 Wiley

    Using a sample of 440 Italian banks over the period 2007-2016, we find that low interest rates motivate banks to expand their fee and commission income and to restructure their securities portfolios. A granular breakdown suggests that banks grow noninterest income in various ways, including portfolio management, brokerage and consultancy services and increase fee income from current account and payment services. In addition, banks rebalance securities portfolios away from those "held for trading" to securities "available for sale" and "held to maturity." Our findings allude to different behavior between large and small banks: while larger banks increase brokerage, consultancy and portfolio management services, smaller banks generate fees from customer current accounts.

    Additional publications