The present study primarily examines the impact of financial distress (FD) on the dividend policy of 33 banks working in the Indian economy from 2010 to 2019. In addition, we further explore the association between financial distress and dividend policy under the influence of shareholder activism (SHA). Using the static panel data regression technique, it is revealed that financial distress is non-linearly associated with the dividend policy of banks in an inverted U-shape. In the initial phase of a distressing situation, banks tend to have a liberal dividend policy. However, after reaching the pressure point, the banks start to squeeze dividend distribution to the stakeholders. Furthermore, the significant impact of shareholder activism has been found in the association between financial distress and the dividend payout policy of banks. From the policy perspective, the study will provide the policymakers with a clear all-round perspective of distressing situations, as the current research involves exploring the impact of distress on the dividend policy that will help the experts in basically understanding the adverse effect of financial distress and the repercussions, respectively, on the earning of the shareholders.

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There is a widespread uncertainty regarding the usefulness of shareholder activism (SA) as a part of corporate governance for firms and banks. SA has wide acceptance across the board among all the stakeholders’ participation. Since banks are the backbone of any economy, any endeavor (support to SA) creating difficulty may boomerang. Such actions do more harm than good; therefore, it is imperative to determine whether SA is beneficial to the banks or not. In this study, the SA index is built for Indian banks. The data relating to bank performance and valuation is gathered for 2016–2019. Panel data econometrics is applied to determine the impact of SA on banks performance. Results reveal that SA impacts bank performance. Furthermore, transparency and disclosure significantly moderates the association of SA with the performance. However, SA is not impacting bank valuation. It is a unique study of its kind to provide insights on SA for the banking sector.

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