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Celtic Tiger: Dead, Sleeping or Getting Ready to Pounce?

January 3rd, 2010 admin No comments

The things that Ireland did right during expansion are many. Starting with the EU, Ireland now had access to trade throughout Europe on a level it had only enjoyed before with the UK. This lead to a large trade surplus by the time of the crash putting many to work, standards of living to rise to second place in the European Union and an economy hungry for construction. At the same time Ireland pursued a program of promoting itself as a scientifically smart nation which was ready to take on the high tech demands of the world’s most sought after companies – which it succeeded in coaxing in; IBA, Apple, Dell and others all sought to relocate to Ireland. These US companies liked the fact that labor was cheaper, language barriers did not exist and there was a highly technical workforce waiting and willing. Good times continued to roll.

But therein may lay a couple of answers as to what went wrong. First of all was that Ireland may have become too anxious to adopt US standards particularly when it came to banking risks. Poor risk management on the part of banks led by the popularity of credit default swaps set Ireland up financially for disaster as soon as the balloon burst in the United States. At the same time Irelands government, some would suggest, placed all too much emphasis on the success of the construction industry and did not diversify enough of its assets. Hind sight is always 20/20 but it will be some time before construction comes back, leaving many without work or other training.

While the banking and construction crisis were bad enough the problem of the economy was not contained to Ireland so Irish export demand suffered greatly. At the same time that companies using Ireland exports halted demand they also began to search for cheaper alternatives. Ireland’s wages had also grown to second in the EU, leaving many to wonder if it could ever be competitive again as users of Irish goods began outsourcing to places like China were wages were and still are drastically cheaper.

Without being able to stand on its exports, in aligning its banking industry with that of the United States and with a huge reliance on one industry, namely construction, Ireland will be slow to rebound. Certainly it is not ready to pounce. It will recover at a rate much like the United States, certainly not a world leader at this point.

The Celtic Tiger is far from dead, however. Ireland does have a sound environment for the tech industry, one that is showing signs of rebirth. It is the tech industry that spawns creativity and historically the largest entrepreneurial spirit of all sectors. This, with the fact that Ireland has now experienced the appetite of a Tiger, means it is only a matter of time before pent up demand leads to at least a partial resurgence in the economy. Whether the Celtic Tiger awakens from its sleep with a voracious appetite will depend on how diversified it can become, how actively it can seek new markets for its exports, how well it can become competitive again in a global economy and how far it can distance itself from United States banks and their lack of regulation.

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Asian Wealth Management

January 3rd, 2010 admin No comments

Asian Wealth management is also known as an advanced system in relation to inside information in details of investment which involves specialist financial services and fiscal planning. The original first steps are helping the family unit engaging with services in retail, the correct legal direction, wealth advice, and taxation advice missions to maintain and grow long term wealth. Financial planning can help the people who are amassing wealth or have recently done so.

Asian wealth management can be embodied through self-governing advisors or great corporate entities like Government banks and the other services re services relating to retail banking designed for targeting purchasers working with retail worthy of high assets. Shoppers of such type are likely to be categorized as ‘upper retail’ or ‘high profit’ clients owing to net value owned, assets relating to the bank charges, assets of their under management, and plenty of other complicated strategies.

Historically wealth managers will always haveadvantages for keeping or attracting the consumers who can make larger profits in comparison with the customers detailing with retail banking. It should be noted that clients of wealth management can’t be named as ‘Private Banking’ clients as they do not make a case for the criteria of services of banking offered by non-public banks.

A Brief Historic Overview:
The term ‘Wealth Management’ traces its origin in the 90s in the united states through Insurance corporations, banks, and Broker Dealers. The evolution of wealth management traces to high-net worth monetary consulting for people who happen to be topmost clients of any of the firms, to high level non-public banking which makes provisions for different sorts of investment, bank products, and insurance. Since 1999, financial firms have managed to make arrangements for all of the 3 services from a single office.

With emergence of wealth management in the shape of professional service, along with career opportunity, educational programs like AAFM, i.e. American academy of finance Management warranted by CWM and Chartered Wealth chief plan are preparing for altered wealth management training to individuals and companies alike. Wealth Management is used to serve the wealthy community, with Chartered monetary researchers, certified bosses of wealth, Public Accountants, government-licensed barristers, insurance professionals, for example.

criteria for diverse nations

in the States, only CPAs and barristers possess the license provided by government for providing recommendation related to tax or legal matters on difficult wealth management, tax law, estate planning, retirement, or maybe other legal matters like divorce or business management.

In Asia, the rules relating to Asian wealth management are such that few advisors pass the tests, outlined under Financial Services Reform Act 2002, managed and governed by ASIC, i.e. Australian securities Investments Commission have entitlement to offer support pertaining to investment products to the retail clients.

Asset Profile:
people engaged in the Asian wealth management, usually work for brokers, financial businesses, accounting firms, law firms, trusts, shopper banks, or managment banks. Smaller ones like registered counsellors could sometimes provide broad array regarding services pertaining to family and wealth.

Particular compartments employed in wealth management include stock trading and stocks, investments in assets, derivatives and products relating to alternative investment, foreign-exchange, unit trusts and hedge funds, investments and management of property, etc. Alternative investments regarding asian wealth management include sculptures, wine, valuable forms, etc.

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Bank Clerk Exam – Getting a Foothold in the Banking Industry

December 22nd, 2009 admin No comments

The comfort and flexibility, which we feel in our day to day life in terms of financial and banking issues, is just because of those people who are working in banks with a zeal that is commendable as it has put in place a system that is safe, extremely simple and what is more lightening quick. We are of course talking about 24 ATMs, Net Banking, Online Share Market Transfers, Easy Availability of Loans, Plastic Money and a reasonably stable interest rates.

There are a bunch of positions and designations in banks say, Bank Clerks, Bank Probationary Officers, loan clerks, loan officers, and loan processors that deal with various parts of loan processes within a bank They have to work fast, compile, and distribute each transaction step by step in a proper manner. Each one them must be an expert in their own area to run the bank smoothly.

If one wants to serve the masses in terms of finance and accounts or any other banking activities, then he or she must appear for Bank Clerk Examination or Bank PO Examination. Today, India has a widespread business infrastructure comprises of various government and private banks. The exams procedure of all banks are dealt in a separate manner for the post of Bank Clerk or Bank PO.

How to prepare for Bank clerk exam and Bank PO exam

There is always a bit of confusion and eagerness among a large number of aspirants about the procedure for preparation for Bank Exams. One of the important things is to know the pattern of the Bank clerk question papers by going through the previous Bank question papers and Bank PO sample Papers. Because these question papers play a crucial role in evaluating your potential and ability. Apart from that, if you go through the previous Bank exam papers properly before appearing in the upcoming test, you can easily crack the Bank PO exams. As this gives you an idea about the exams’ pattern. However, there are a couple of basic things that one should keep in mind while preparing to crack the Bank P.O. question papers. By doing such activities of solving the previous year question papers you will find your self very much clear and confident, which helps you out in easily cracking the Bank exams, as you already have an idea about the exams’ pattern.

The banking industry is booming like anything with quite a number of private international banks and also the government banks, which are also making several efforts to give comfort and flexibility to the mass consumers in terms of home loans, financial security and various life long money saving bonds. So the future of a Banker is very visible and lucrative among all the top IT and highly professional employees of the country.

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The Next Banking Revolution

October 27th, 2009 admin No comments

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The world is in the midst of a banking revolution that has nothing to do with exotic financial engineering. It’s in microfinance, or the provision of financial services to poor people worldwide.
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rTo most people, microfinance means microcredit, or lending to the owners of very small businesses in the developing world. In recent years, though, efforts to extend a wider range of financial services to reach the nearly three-quarters of the world’s population with per-capita incomes below $3,000 — the so-called “base of the pyramid” — have gained significant traction.
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rSince the first microloan was dispensed in Brazil in 1973, microlending pioneers such as Accion International and Grameen Bank — the latter founded by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus — have proven that the poor, served responsibly, are excellent credit risks and prudent users of financial services.
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rA surge of experimentation in the last five years, fueled by an influx of investment capital, has demonstrated an equally strong demand from the base for savings, insurance and tools such as bank cards and cell phones to facilitate payments.
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rNew York Times columnist Paul Krugman has said that we should “make banking boring again.” If “boring” means returning to the basics of relationship banking, strong underwriting and transparent products, he’s right. But there is nothing boring about extending service based on those principles to the base.
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r$5 trillion in purchasing power
rThat’s the long-term challenge for the financial industry, from multinational banks looking for new sources of sustainable growth to small microfinance organizations seeking to extend their reach and diversify their services. Statistics show the base’s collective purchasing power currently stands at $5 trillion.
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rScaling microfinance up presents daunting challenges. Chief among them are the high costs of reaching deep into rural backwaters and inner-city slums, and of servicing very small transactions. Meeting these challenges requires creative alliances and cultural insight as well as technical innovation.
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rSome recent successes:
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r– Partnerships for last-mile delivery: In 2001, Brazilian banking authorities introduced the banking correspondent model, a regulatory innovation that has radically transformed access to financial services in Brazil and is being adopted, with regional variations, across Latin America and to a limited degree in India. Brazil allows any enterprise, including supermarkets, lottery kiosks, pharmacies and post offices to act as an agent to one or several banks.
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rIn Brazil today, 95,000 agents are conduits for services such as new accounts, deposits, withdrawals and bill payments. Before the banking agent revolution, almost a third of Brazil’s municipalities had no banking services; now they all do. At least 13 million new savings accounts have been opened.
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rThe agent model may be the single most powerful means of localizing banking services. Banking authorities in Peru report that a bank branch costs about $200,000 to set up, while an agent costs just $5,000.
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r– Technology: One engine of the agent model is the pre-paid bank card and the humble point-of-sale machine, the device that reads your card at the supermarket checkout counter. A point-of-sale machine typically costs less than $100 vs. thousands for an ATM. Customers can use cards at locations with the point-of-sale machine to make deposits, withdraw cash, make a money transfer, and pay bills as well as make purchases.
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rThe pre-paid card model avoids risks of over-indebtedness and the problems of complex fees currently bedeviling the U.S. market. For poor people, liberation from the need to pay every bill in cash and in person at the bank branch saves a tremendous amount of time, cost and risk.
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rAn even more flexible and user-centered payment device has taken off in parts of Africa and Asia: the cell phone. In Kenya, the Philippines and South Africa, millions of cell-phone customers use text messaging to withdraw and deposit cash at the same retail outlets where they buy airtime for their phones. They also use the phones to receive their salary, pay off loans and store money, as well as make retail purchases.
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r– Product design: Microinsurance providers have proved especially creative in designing products tailored to specific cultural needs. In Latin America, many women balk at buying life insurance because they don’t want to enrich their husband’s imagined second wife. “Education life” policies therefore provide benefits in the form of school

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