ABSTRACT : The issue of corporate governance and financial performance has always been an essential and critical element for banking sector in Nigeria. Good corporate governance practices and establishing a risk management committee are regarded as important in reducing risk for investors and improving performance. This study investigates the effect of risk management committee attributes and board financial knowledge on the financial performance of listed banks in Nigeria. Furthermore, the research used secondary data obtained from the annual report of fourteen (14) banks listed in the Nigerian stock exchange for the year 2014-2016 with 42 firm-year observations and based on panel data approach. Furthermore, the regression estimates are based on random effect. The result indicates that risk management committee independence, and board financial knowledge exhibit a significant negative relationship with ROA. Meanwhile, risk management committee size has a positive insignificant relationship with ROA. Besides providing suggestion for future research work, this study provides several recommendations for regulators and the Nigerian banking industry.

KEYWORDS – Risk, management, size, independence, firm, performance