Features of the Commercial Banks` Dividend Policy under Institutional Constraints on the Example of BRICS

In the first Chapter of the master's thesis, the main directions of research on dividend policy from the literature on financial management were studied. The main theories of dividend choice of companies and empirical research in this area are analyzed. Based on the results of the analysis of empirical works on dividend policy in emerging markets, the author concluded that the impact of institutional determinants and restrictions on the payment of dividends is not sufficiently studied. Only a few authors consider these factors in their work. In the second Chapter of the master's thesis, a regression analysis of the factors of the dividend policy of BRICS companies for 2018 was performed. When forming the research hypotheses, we used the provisions of the theories of dividend choice and the results of empirical studies of the dividend policy of companies in developing markets (including the BRICS countries). The results of the regression analysis of the factors of dividend payout policy of the companies of the BRICS countries in 2018 confirmed the statistical significance of the effect of the state participation in the authorized capital of companies of India, China and Brazil on their policy of dividend payments. For companies in Russia and South Africa, it was not possible to confirm the existence of a statistically significant relationship between the indicators of the dividend policy and the share of state participation in the authorized capital of companies. According to the results of the regression models, the share of state participation positively affects the indicators of the dividend policy of Indian and Brazilian companies. For Chinese companies, the negative statistically significant influence of the determinant on the dividend payout ratio was confirmed. Based on the results of an empirical study of the dividend policy of BRICS companies in 2018, it was concluded that the impact of state participation on the payment of dividends has cross-national characteristics due to differences in institutional restrictions in each country. Further analysis of the specifics of dividend payments by BRICS companies was carried out in the third Chapter of the master's thesis, the object of research was commercial banks of the BRICS countries. The third Chapter analyzes the dividend payments of commercial banks in the BRICS countries in the period 2013-2019. For Russian banks, a broader study period was selected (2010-2019). according to the results of the analysis, foreign banks with a high share of state participation rarely change the coefficient of dividend payments and try to maintain it at the same level. At the same time, in Russia, this indicator changed repeatedly in the period under review, and each Bank's direction of change was different. Also, in the third Chapter of the master's thesis, the forecast of the volume of dividends of PJSC VTB Bank for 2020-2022 was made, taking into account the peculiarities of the structure of its authorized capital and the current mechanism for distributing dividends. The example of PJSC VTB Bank shows how the presence of a conflict of interest between the Bank's main shareholders, who are state structures, as well as the presence of institutional restrictions can affect the dividend policy of a commercial Bank in Russia. As a further direction of research on the dividend policy of BRICS commercial banks, we can use a regression analysis of the determinants of their dividend payment policy.