The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Earning Quality: Empirical Evidence from Commercial Banks in Saudi Arabia

This study aims to investigate the impact of the Corona pandemic on the earning quality (EQ) of Saudi national banks. It was conducted to evaluate the measurement of the earning quality based on the Penman approach. The researchers used the analytical method to conduct the study to find the effect of this Pandemic. Data was collected from the annual reports for the period 2010 to 2020 from Saudi national banks, which are twelve according to the annual report for the Saudi central bank, and eight of them were selected as a sample of the study. The banks are Alinma Bank, Al Rajhi Bank, Bank Al Bilad, The National Commercial Bank, Bank Aljazeera, Riyad Bank, Samba Financial Group (Samba), and Arab National Bank. The study findings showed that the Corona pandemic had a negative impact on the Saudi economy, and led to deflation in 2020 by 4.1% due to the oil sector. They also showed reducing oil production by the (OPEC +) agreement to achieve stability in the oil market and the non-oil sector. It was also revealed that the profits of Saudi commercial banks in 2020 decreased by 23.1% and that the Corona pandemic had Caused the earning quality to decline in all the studied banks.