Abstract
This study examined the disclosure of risks and opportunities in the integrated reports
(IRs) of the top five banks in South Africa. It assesses whether the risk and opportunity disclosures
provided comply with the requirements of the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF),
as well as the nature of the risks and opportunities disclosed in the IR. This study takes a qualitative
approach and employs an interpretivist paradigm. The information for this study was obtained
through content analysis of the individual banks’ latest available IRs. A checklist was created as
a measuring tool to evaluate disclosure practices. The findings showed that three of the selected
banks disclosed all the requirements contained in the IIRF regarding risks and opportunities, while
two banks only partially complied as they did not provide disclosures about their opportunities.
The findings concerning the nature of risk disclosures show that the selected banks disclosed 38
themes related to risks, and the findings concerning the nature of opportunity disclosures show that
the selected banks disclosed 14 themes related to opportunities. Furthermore, the results show that
those in charge of preparing the IRs provide a thorough disclosure of risks, while there is room for
improvement concerning disclosure of opportunities.