The transparency levels of companies in the light of corporate governance: Financial institutions examples of the BIST

One of the underlying reasons for the recent financial crises and corporate scandals is lack of sufficient transparency, which is one of the principles of corporate governance. Transparency is accessibility of the important information about the company when it is needed by the stakeholders in an understanable and reliable way. Today investors take into account not only the financial performance of companies, but also their corporate governance applications. Sharing information with stakeholders is a necessity of transparency, which is one of the principles of Corporate Governance. Because, thanks to transparecey, all information about company are known by stakeholders and an environment of trust are achieved for investors. The aim of this study is to determine the levels of transparency of the financial institutions registered at BIST. In accordance with the aim of the study, the distribution of frequencies of the data obtained by applying a survey to financial institutions are presented using SPSS version 22. The result suggested the transparency average of the financial institutions within the scope of study is 81%.