Impact of intellectual capital on financial ratios: evidence from Polish banks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange

The goal of this article is to evaluate the impact of intellectual capital efficiency on the financial ratios of Polish banks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The timespan of the study covers the years 2014-2020. Various research methods were applied in the study – descriptive analysis, desk research, the VAICTM method, descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis – by the panel least squares method. The results obtained confirmed the influence of intellectual capital efficiency on return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA) and total shareholder return (TSR). Moreover, a varied influence in the efficiency of individual components of intellectual capital was found on the indicated metrics describing the results of the studied companies (i.e. financial ratios). The study confirms that, in the knowledge-based economy, intellectual capital plays a critical role in strengthening banks’ financial ratios. The application of the presented methods should provide additional knowledge on the role of intellectual capital in management of a commercial bank and interest a broad spectrum of people: scientists, management staff, representatives of supervisory institutions as well as practitioners on the market: investors and analysts.