Yahaya, K. A.Lawal, R. Y.2018-06-222018-06-222017-12http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/738Corporate decisions may be influenced by institutional shareholders and the effect on corporate policies may change with the level of institutional ownership. Hence, this study examined the causality between institutional shareholding and corporate governance mechanisms of selected deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study used fifieen (I5) deposit money banks quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study employed secondary data which was obtained from Audited Annual Report of the selected banks in Nigeria for a period of ten years (2006- 2015). The data obtained were subjected to Granger causality test to determine the causal relationship between institutional shareholding and corporate governance. The findings show that there is bi-directional causality between institutional shareholding and audit committee independence while there is unidirectional causal relationship between institutional shareholding and board independence/board composition. Based on these findings, the study concluded that there exists a causal effect between institutional shareholdings and corporate governance among deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study recommends that institutional shareholders should use their power within the legal provision to ensure independence of the audit committee in curbing insider related credit abuse which may affect the return on their investment. Banks’ board of directors should also ensure independence of the board and audit committee in order lo attract more institutional investors to enhance performance.enBoard structurecorporate govemanceinstitutional shareholding,deposit money banksArticle