MBA & MM Theses

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Banks and banking

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 42
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    ECONOMIC VALUE ADDED (EVA) WITHIN THE BANKING ENVIRONMENT
    (2014-05-23) Hofman, Bradley Marc
    The failure of many small and medium-sized banks and the focus of corporate governance issues have called for improvements in performance measurements within the banking environment. The element of performance measure and wealth creation is seen as vital from the perspective of a small-capitalised bank. The purpose of the project report is on deriving Economic Value Added measurements and the value drivers for a small niche bank. The management accounts of a small niche bank were analysed and the findings were that only four accounting adjustments are required to determine economic value added for a small niche bank. The value driver in the bank is the focus on improving operational efficiency.
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    THE MACROECONOMIC COSTS AND GAINS OF QUASI-FISCAL ACTIVITIES BY THE RESERVE BANK OF ZIMBABWE
    (2014-02-19) Chikuruwo, Leon
    Central Banks across the world sometimes take up unconventional policy actions by embarking on Quasi-Fiscal Activities (QFAs) for social, economic or political obligations of government. These activities are fiscal in nature and are carried out on behalf of government by different institutions including Central Banks. This paper assesses the scope and coverage of QFAs by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) between 2004 and 2008. Seven respondents were purposefully selected in this qualitative ex post impact assessment study. The selection criterion of one RBZ official, two economists, two financial sector officials, and two from the academia was on the basis of their unique status, experience, and knowledge of the Reserve Bank and its policy actions. Policy documents, project reports, and transcribed interviews informed the findings of this research. Polarised views were drawn between the RBZ sources and other respondents. The RBZ was of the view that the economicchallenges due to sanctions on Zimbabwe were minimised by its extraordinary interventions. The other respondents acknowledged the short-term benefits but, maintained that the interventions exacerbated the county’s macroeconomic misfortunes. Negative economic growth, high unemployment, and hyperinflation pointed to the negative impact of QFAs. This report contends that although isolated positive trends were traced in the RBZ QFAs, their macroeconomic costs outweigh their gains. Central Banks are recommended to focus on their monetary policy mandate and avoid QFAs because fiscal policy objectives often dominate the interventions. The continued existence of QFAs of Central Banks calls for further research into the politics of QFAs.
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    An analysis into client based banking applications in South Africa
    (2014-02-17) Naidoo, Drushen
    The relationship between customers and their banks is becoming more dynamic (Ernst and Young, 2012). Customers are seeking greater control in their banking relationship. They are switching banks, changing their behaviours and seeking efficiencies. Banks need to reconfigure their business models, revaluate assumptions and fundamentally change how they interact with customers (Ernst and Young, 2012). It is estimated that there are over 10 million active smartphones in South Africa (Deloitte, 2013). The convergence of banking services and mobile technologies allows users to conduct banking service at any time or place through mobile banking (Gu, Lee, & Suh, 2009). The advent of smartphones and tablets has allowed banks to enhance the delivery of mobile financial services through the development of client based banking applications. These client based smartphone applications are developed for specific mobile operating systems such as Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, Blackberry’s Blackberry OS7.1, 6.0 and 5.0. Smartphones will allow banks to leverage newer mobile technologies, harness analytics gathered through use of their applications to position products and services that will be of interest to their customers. This could result in increased revenues and it also provides an opportunity to increase market penetration. “ As banks develop their strategies for giving customers access to their accounts through cell phones and other mobile devices, they should also regard this emerging platform as a potential catalyst for generating operational efficiencies and as a vehicle for new revenue sources.“ (Deloitte Development, 2010) This research attempts to analyse and evaluate the usage patterns of clientbased mobile banking applications in South Africa by trying to ascertain what functionalities are performed on mobile banking applications and how often they are performed. This paper attempts to address these questions by building on (Trudel, Boeck, Bastonnais, Rabec, & Bergeron, 2011) typology of functionalities 5 performed on mobile banking applications by including a new construct, Frequency of Use in the determination of usage patterns
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    Comparative analysis of mobile and online banking use in South Africa
    (2014-01-21) Ntsimane, Mpho
    Online and mobile banking are both channels with potential to make banking accessible to the majority of people, and in particular in South Africa where there is a high uptake of mobile communication usage. Yet the adoption of both these channels has been very low, especially when one compares the rate at which mobile communication devices continue to grow. The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the factors that influence the adoption of mobile and online banking in South Africa using the Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and to develop a deeper understanding of the antecedent factors that influence the adoption of one service over the other in South Africa. The aim was to understand these factors and test and verify these factors in the South African context. The research data was collected by using self-administered questionnaires that were distributed to mobile and online banking customers and prospective customers, and in addition, interviews were conducted with both digital banking experts and thought leaders. A total of 215 responses was collected from the survey questionnaire administered with 177 usable responses. A further 6 interviews were conducted with digital banking experts and thought leaders in order to cross-examine the quantitative results from the surveyed population. The demographic information as well as technology usage is useful to understand the type of customer profile that the banks have to focus their marketing efforts on in order to improve on the adoption of both online and mobile banking services. Principal component analysis was applied on the ii surveyed data to test whether the proposed factors are applicable in the South African context. The factors that were identified to influence the adoption of mobile and online banking are performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions as per the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model. Effort expectancy was not an influential factor in online banking contrary to the UTAUT model. Furthermore, the study tested how factors like age and gender moderate some of these factors in order to further understand the adoption influence across some groupings. In comparison, the identified factors were more influential on online banking than mobile banking, highlighting the relationship that might exist between factors and the product lifecycle. The study further showed that there are multiple factors that influence the adoption of technologies. Some of the factors are more influential than others under certain circumstances; and some of the factors could even be more influential to certain technologies than others. It is therefore important for organisations to continuously study these factors throughout the technology lifecycle as this will enhance decision-making and increase successful technology implementation.
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    CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN BANKING SECTOR
    (2014-01-21) Ramodibe, Palesa Tebogo
    Instead of trying to justify CSR by demonstrating the profits associated with CSR or the social necessity of CSR, there is also a need for studies that explain how institutions, such as banks, respond to an increasing demand for CSR as a business imperative. The study uses a sense-making framework that seeks to illuminate the cognitive, linguistic and conative elements to how CSR bank managers in South Africa relate to CSR stakeholders, and how they have thus far heeded the call to be socially responsible in a triple bottom line driven fashion. Potential respondents were approached, resulting in a purposive (convenience) sample of 12 institutions, and 17 individual managers from the South African CSR banking population being chosen for interviews carried out in a semistructured, informal, and in-depth format. Thematic analysis of transcribed interview data revealed that the practice of triple bottom line inspired CSR is limited in South African banking, with CSI being the dominant practice. The terminologies CSR and CSI were confused and used interchangeably, flagging a sector-wide misunderstanding of what CSR is relative to CSI. The influence of apartheid legacy and African culture are noted as underlying drivers to the preferred vehicle for social responsibility investment, namely philanthropy. Added to this, the coordinated expenditure of the CSR budgets is largely earmarked for educational and financial inclusion priorities, regardless of the lack of basic monitoring and evaluation techniques to justify the sector wide focus.
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    Perceptions of customer service and intentions to switch in South African retail banking
    (2014-01-09) Stenekamp, Altus Geoffrey
    There are many studies that focus on customer satisfaction and possible switching in service industries (Keaveney, 1995; Levesque and McDougall, 1996; Mittal and Lassar, 1998). Thus, understanding what leads to customer satisfaction and why they switch from one retail bank to another is vital in order to ensure sustainable profitability. The purpose of this research was to ascertain customers‟ perceptions of the four biggest retail banks in South Africa and to what extent these perceptions can lead to possible switching between banks. This was done by adapting the research of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) to the South African retail banking context. A conjoint study was undertaken and the results showed that customers have generally positive perceptions of customer service in South African retail banking. They also perceive core service failures to be the most important switching consideration, followed by assurance, reliability and attitude and bank charges. A model depicting a personal threshold where the perceived possible future utility gained from switching to another bank surpasses that of the perceived utility at the current bank was also introduced. By understanding the levels of customer satisfaction, coupled with their needs and switching intentions, retail banks will be able to better understand customer behaviour and possible future switching.
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    South African women’s bank selection criteria
    (2013-10-22) Mabula, Italia Ramadimetsa
    This study investigates the bank selection factors of South African women and their order of importance, using Johannesburg as a case study. A quantitative research survey of 115 respondents was used to collect the data needed for this study. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method of factor analysis was used to explain the correlations among variables. The main findings of this research are that the most important bank selection factors of South African women include, in order of importance: knowledge and competence of staff (1), speed of service delivery of staff (1), e-banking facilities, i.e. online and mobile banking (2), security and transparency (3), quick, simple and easy to understand processes and services (4), image, attitude and courtesy of staff (5), interest on positive balances (6), bank fees (7), interested charged on loans and overdrafts (8), availability of auto teller machines ATMs (9), suited to my personalized needs (10), rate of interest charged (11), waiting period (12), suited to my household needs (13), ease of access to credit (14), branch accessibility (15), advertising and reward programs (16) and lastly recommendations from family, friends and peers (17), The results of this study suggest that banking and advertising executives who aim to target women more effectively as a segment, not only need to focus on providing great service through capable and competent staff, but also need to do so within an environment that women can trust and in which they feel secure. Women need to feel empowered with simple information that enables them to have a greater understanding of banking products and services, highlighting the financial benefits thereof.
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    Explaining sustained post-adoption use of mobile banking
    (2013-10-10) Desaraj, Bhavesh Khosai
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    Corporate Preference Criteria for Transactional Banking Services in South Africa
    (2012-12-04) Murdoch, Jefferson
    Understanding the preference criteria of potential corporate clients when choosing transactional banking services is essential for corporate banks. In knowing what is significantly important to clients and equally knowing what is unimportant, allows corporate banks to market themselves more strategically to potential clients. This research determines the relative importance of preference criteria for transactional banking services by corporate organisations in South Africa. Furthermore, it establishes whether any significant differences exist in preference criteria between two levels of management within corporate organisations, being strategic and operational-level financial managers. Finally this research determines whether there are significant differences in preference criteria for bank selection across various industry sectors in South Africa. A questionnaire based survey of 208 corporate respondents at two levels of management and across various industry sectors in South Africa was used. Thirteen preference criteria for selecting a corporate transactional bank were individually rated by respondents using a ten-point Likert scale of importance. The findings indicate that the bank’s technological capability in providing secure electronic banking with all the required functionality is the most important and significant preference criterion for corporates when choosing a transactional bank in South Africa. The second most important and significant criterion is the financial health of the bank in terms of assets and/or external credit ratings. The third most important and significant criterion for bank selection is the experience that the bank has in providing transactional banking services. This research further confirms that no differences exist in the ratings of preference criteria for transactional banking services between strategic and operational-level financial managers of corporates or across industry sectors in South Africa. These findings differ from other research findings, demonstrating the need for more frequent corporate surveys considering that bank selection preferences may change over time and may differ depending on the specific services being sought.
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    A Comparison on the Efficiency of South African and Chinese Banks
    (2012-12-04) Chen, Zhanqing
    Policy makers and regulators have been concerned with the issue of how efficiently banks transform their various inputs into multiple financial products, because efficiency in the banking sector is considered a precondition for macroeconomic stability (Ngalande, 2003). Bank efficiency is the comparison of what is actually produced, with what can be achieved with the same consumption of resources (Farrel, 1957). Berger, Hunter and Timme (1993) reviewed the research on bank efficiency and concluded that econometric approaches are more appropriate in determining bank efficiency. The purpose of this study is to investigate bank profit efficiency and cost efficiency in South Africa and China, and to identify the differences and changes in bank efficiency between the two countries. The study uses an econometric approach to determine bank efficiency in South Africa and China. The econometric model is based on the specification developed by Battese and Coelli (1995). Bank efficiency includes profit efficiency and cost efficiency. Different models have been developed in this research. Both profit efficiency and cost efficiency were found to have remained at the same level over the period for all sampled South African and Chinese banks. Advances to customers and banks, investment securities and total equity were found to be the most significant variables in profit model. Deposits and current accounts owned by customers were among the least significant parameters and not an important factor in determining a bank’s profit efficiency. In the cost- efficiency frontier model, advances to customers and banks, as well as investment securities were the most significant variables, while total equity was least significant. When comparing South African and Chinese banks, no significant difference was identified on either profit or cost efficiency.