Financial intermediation, competition and risk

The International Finance and Banking Society (IFABS) is one of the world’s leading organizations for the promotion of research and understanding of banking and finance. Established in 2009, its purpose is to raise awareness of the importance of banking and finance for economic development and the wellbeing of members of society. It achieves this by providing a forum for discussion and critical analysis of the major financial and banking challenges that face the contemporary world.\r\n\r\nIFABS provides a set of networking opportunities for academics, research students, policy makers and practitioners to share new knowledge, which is underpinned by high quality research. Additionally, IFABS sponsors an annual international conference along with seminars and workshops throughout the year on current banking and finance issues. Over a relatively short period of time, IFABS has gained an enviable reputation and now has a membership of over 1000, which continues to grow.\r\n\r\nThe 2011 IFABS Conference was held at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Rome III, Italy, in collaboration with the School of Management of the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, between 30 June and 2 July 2011. The Conference attracted 598 paper submissions and after a rigorous selection process by the members of the Scientific Committee, 212 papers were accepted for presentation. Of the papers presented, about 76 papers were submitted for the special issue and underwent the normal journal review process. Among them, 18 of them passed the JBF selection process and have been accepted for publication. These papers cover a wide range of contemporary research issues in banking and finance and we group them in three areas: financial intermediation, investment and asset pricing, and miscellaneous research issues in finance.