Dividend policy behavior is at the core of finance theories and is still the most debatable and prominent issue in the corporate finance literature for both developed and developing markets. Numerous researchers have devised theories and studies to uncover the issues pertinent to dividend policy dynamics, but Black (1976) refers to the dividend as a puzzle. Brealey and Myers (2005) argue that the dividend is among the top ten unresolved problems of finance. Lintner (1956) proposes the dividend partial adjustment model and suggests that current year profits and previous year dividends are the only two contributing factors for a firm’s dividend. Later, many researchers introduced their works to suggest the key factors that drive a firm’s dividend policy. A plethora of literature identifies debt financing, earning measures, free cash flows, firm growth, investment opportunities, firm size, large shareholders, firm risk level, etc., as potential contributors for determining a firm’s dividend policy for both developed and developing markets (Bhattacharya, 1979; Ho, 2003; Kale and Noe, 1990; Charitou, 2000; Al-Malkawi, 2007; Anil and Kapoor, 2008; Juma’h and Pacheco, 2008; Ahmed and Javid, 2009; Ramli, 2010; Mehrani et al., 2011; Al-Shabibi and Ramesh, 2011; Hashemi and Zadeh, 2012; Appannan and Sim, 2011). In addition to these factors, researchers have also identified board size, board composition, board independence, board gender, ownership concentration, outside directors, audit type, CEO power, institutional ownership, investor protection and shareholder rights as the key determinants of dividend policy under the umbrella of corporate governance (Adjaoud and Ben‐Amar, 2010; Abor and Fiador, 2013; Setia-Atmaja, 2010; Erol and Tirtiroglu, 2011; Al-Shabibi and Ramesh, 2011; La Porta et al., 2000). The literature on dividend policy is too extensive to survey here, but Baker et al. (2011) argue that divided policy still vexes financial economists. Despite the ample literature published on the dividend behavior of firms, there is still room to understand what factors drive the dividend pay-out decision. This study focuses on a new dimension, i.e., financial expertise on the board, to explain the dividend policy dynamics in emerging markets. This study is motivated by the following two reasons: first, the confidence of shareholders has been shaken by various accounting scandals and financial crises since the 1990s, such as Enron, HealthSouth, Tyco, WorldCom and the financial crisis of 2007-2008, which has stressed the regulators and market makers to the need for board members to have financial expertise. Kirkpatrick (2009) and Walker (2009) argue that the lack of financial expertise on corporate boards played a major role during the financial crisis. Therefore, the presence of more financial expertise on a board ultimately influences the board’s decisions, including dividend policy. Having financial expertise on the board will keep them from being accused of failure in their watchdog role and will better serve the shareholders’ interests. Second, there is a growing body of literature on how financial expertise on boards improves the board’s efficiency (Karamanou and Vafeas, 2005; Agrawal and Chadha, 2005; Krishnan, 2005; Beasley, 1996; Dechow et al., 1996; Anderson et al., 2004), leads to better corporate practices (Krishnan, 2005; Robinson et al., 2012) and improves firm performance (Dionne and Triki, 2005; Francis et al., 2012; Fernandes and Fich, 2013). Therefore, given the significance of financial expertise of board members, there is a need to analyze how the financial expertise on a board affects the dividend policy, which is considered an important factor in mitigating agency conflict and improving corporate governance.