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Importance of innovation in banking
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If there is one industry that has the stigma of being old and boring, it would have to be banking; however, a global trend of deregulation has opened up many new businesses to the banks. Coupling that with technological developments like internet banking and ATMs, the banking industry is obviously trying its hardest to shed its lackluster image.
There is no question that bank stocks are among the hardest to analyze. Many banks hold billions of dollars in assets and have several subsidiaries in different industries. A perfect example of what makes analyzing a bank stock so difficult is the length of their financials - they are typically well over 100 pages. While it would take an entire textbook to explain all the ins and outs of the banking industry, here we'll shed some light on the more important areas to look at when analyzing a bank as an investment. (For background reading, see Analyzing A Bank's Financial Statements.)
There are two major types of banks in North America:
* Regional (and Thrift) Banks - These are the smaller financial institutions, which primarily focus on one geographical area within a country. In the U.S., there are six regions: Southeast, Northeast, Central, etc. Providing depository and lending services is the primary line of business for regional banks.
* Major (Mega) Banks - While these banks might maintain local branches, their main scope is in financial centers like New York, where they get involved with international transactions and underwriting.
Could you imagine a world without banks? At first, this might sound like a great thought! But banks (and financial institutions) have become cornerstones of our economy for several reasons. They transfer risk, provide liquidity, facilitate both major and minor transactions and provide financial information for both individuals and businesses.
Running a bank is just as difficult as analyzing it for investment purposes. A bank's management must look at the following criteria before it decides how many loans to extend, to whom the loans can be given, what rates to set, and so on:
* Capital Adequacy and the Role of Capital
* Asset and Liability Management - There is a happy medium between banks overextending themselves (lending too much) and lending enough to make a profit.
* Interest Rate Risk - This indicates how changes in interest rates affect profitability.
* Liquidity - This is formulated as the proportion of outstanding loans to total assets.
Net working capital represents organization’s operating liquidity. In order to compute the net working capital, total current assets are divided from total current liabilities. When there is sufficient excess of current assets over current liabilities, an organization might be considered sufficiently liquid. Another ratio that helps in assessing the operating liquidity of as company is a current ratio. The ratio is calculated by dividing the total current assets over total current liabilities. When the current ratio is high, the organization has enough of current assets to pay for the liabilities. Yet, another mean of calculating the organization’s debt-paying ability is the debt ratio. To calculate the ratio, total liabilities are divided by total assets. The computation gives information on what proportion of organization’s assets is financed by a debt, and what is the entity’s ability to pay for current and long term liabilities. Lower debt ratio is better, because the low liabilities require low debt payments. To be able to lend money, an organization’s current ratio has to fall above a certain level, also the debt ratio cannot rise above a certain threshold. Otherwise, the entity will not be able to lend money or will have to pay high penalties. The following steps can be undertaken by a company to keep the debt ratio within normal
Banks exist to provide people with financial security. Banks accounts allow for people to store money for saving and investing purposes. People give their money to banks in hopes that the bank will take care of their money. However, history has shown as that banks cannot be completely trusted. For example, in the days of the Great Depression. During the years of President Roosevelt’s tenure, he attempted to make it easier for people to trust banks. Still, many years later, banks cannot be completely trusted. In 2008, the financial crisis was the worst since the Great Depression, and it stemmed primarily from banks’ abuse of people. Once again, there has been legislation to keep banks from abusing
... to service our current needs. It is also important that they are committed to the ongoing investment in technology required to deliver the securities, cash and investment management support services we require. The Bank of New York is a well-established financial institution that has outlasted numerous financial hardships, including the Great Depression. It has a long history of providing excellent services to its customers. In the present day, The Bank of New York continues to live up to that reputation by offering its customers a variety of financial services. The future can only get better for the Bank of New York. With the technological era in full swing, the Bank of New York is taking full advantage by specializing in technological securities. In conclusion, The Bank if New York is a historical financial institution that played an important role in the economic growth of the United States. No other bank can say that it has done as much for the United States as has done the Bank of New York.
The Bank of the United States is a symbol of the long held American fear of centralization and government control. The bank was an attempt to bring some stability and control and was successful at doing this. However, both times the bank was chartered, forces within the economy ultimately destroyed it. The fear of centralization and control was ultimately detrimental to the U.S. economy.
The Federal Reserve System is a central banking of the US Government, most commonly known as the Fed. A central bank serves as the banker to both the banking community and the government. It issues the national currency, conducts monetary policy, and plays a major role in the supervision and regulation of banks and bank holding companies. Congress created the Fed in 1913. It was designed to ensure political independence and sensitivity to the many different economic concerns. The chairman and the six other members of the Board of Governors who oversea the Fed are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. There are twelve District Reserve Banks, subsequently located in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, in Richmond, VA. In Atlanta, GA., Cleveland, OH. St. Louis and Kansas City, MO., Chicago, Minneapolis MI., Dallas, TX. And San Francisco. Each bank is responsible to a 9 member Board of Directors, which is set in a three-class system. The three classes are defined as A, B, and member banks elect C. Class A and the Board of Governors appoints B Directors and Class C. The Board of Directors is responsible for the administration of its banks and the appointment of the banks president and vice-president. This process is set from the base...
Bank of America is an international and widely known banking and financial corporation. Its headquarters are located in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Bank of America is the second largest bank holding company in the United States of America. A bank holding company is a company that owns and controls one or more banks, but does not necessarily take part in the act of banking itself. This gives it a greater range of flexibility that enables it to raise capital for itself more easier than a traditional bank. Other benefits include: “The holding company can assume debt of shareholders on a tax free basis, borrow money, acquire other banks and non-bank entities more easily, and issue stock with greater regulatory ease.”. In essence, this grants the bank holding company a much more freely moving business that has a distinct advantage over its lesser bank brethren. Bank of America has a variety of interesting topics that will be extensively and thoroughly covered. These include Bank of America’s history, its financial and stock analysis, its multitude of operations, and the large number of controversies that surround the Bank. Once the said topics have been rigorously and exhaustively described, the beautiful conclusion will rear its head and allow the reader to bask in the satisfaction of finishing this extremely interesting paper.
In regards to the corporation’s balance sheet, it is necessary to place an importance on liquidity ratios to demonstrate the company’s ability to pay its short term obligations such as accounts payable and notes that have a duration of less than one year. These commonly used liquidity ratios include the current ratio, quick ratio, and cash ratio. All three ratios are used to measure the liquidity of a company or business. The current ratio is used to indicate a business’s ability to meet maturing obligations. The quick ratio is used to indicate the company’s ability to pay off debt. Finally the cash ratio is used to measure the amount of capital as well short term counterparts a business has over its current liabilities.
By taking into account only the most liquid assets, ratio 1.0 in 2013 and 2012, which increased by a small margin 0.2 from 2011, indicates that company has strong liquidity position.
This paper will serve as a discussion on the topic of investment banking. In this paper the author includes various articles and thoughts that help to understand the background and principle of investment banking. This discourse will attempt to address this issue through explaining what investment banking is, introducing major investment bankers, and how investment banking affects our globally economy. Investment Banking Defined Investopedia (2008) stated this definition about investment banking, “A specific division of banking related to the creation of capital for other companies. Investment banks underwrite new debt and equity securities for all types of corporations.
Banks establish their branches all over the country to maximise their respective market shares in banking. The basic characteristic of branch banking is that the branch operations are controlled by head offices and each branch is regarded as a profit centre. Each branch is regarded as a profit centre instead of a cost centre because each of them has the ability to produce revenue through lending and investment activities.
Even though “now” banks and building societies look much alike, they used to be completely different types of financial institutions. For this reason, I will point out the differences and similarities as we go along the historical process through which these two, once utterly distinct, types of financial institutions started to look the same.
The intensely competitive, action-oriented, profit-hungry world of investment banking can seem like a bigger-than-life place where deals are done and fortunes are made. Investment bank includes but is not limited to bringing an established company to the market, by that I mean taking company with the capabilities but not capital of expanding, and raising money through other investors or the stock market (IPO) for a commission, I chose this field because of my personal experience with my father and his company, I’ve seen him go from starting off as a cold calling broker, to running a brokerage firm, to starting a brokerage firm, all the way to having his own investment firm. I feel like I would do better with jobs where you set your own hours and work at your own pace. A lot of the work is commission based so the more your work the more you make, this would also benefit me because it would drive me to work more, money is my motivation. To be hired you will need good people and communication skills, highly analytical skills, high ability to synthesize and high creative ability. You will also need experience in modeling, valuing companies, and financial accounting.
Never have I ever climbed a mountain peak. As a child, I imagined myself conducting expeditions in deep-frozen pathways, leading amateur explorers to the top of the world, and instructing rookies in surviving harsh blizzards. Even though slightly altered, my childhood dream has been achieved. I led a team of fellow classmates, in my Strategic Management course, to the success summit of a financial competition. Over the course of a semester, I and my teammates were supposed to create and manage a company of the IT industry, in a computer-simulated environment, along with other four rival teams. I dealt with strategy and financial matters of our virtual enterprise, while my colleagues were working on marketing and manufacturing. During the four months of the exercise, I have experienced finance from various aspects: capital budgeting, through selecting favorable investment for upcoming quarters; debt management, by assessing the necessary amount and efficiency of loans; profitability analysis and dividend policy, which had been used to compile the company’s general performance index. Working in a multinational team, which included an American, a Norwegian and a Moldovan, strengthen my negotiations skills, as well as flexibility and cooperation. But above all, this experience intensified my passion for finance. Of course, a pleasant bonus was the fact that, in the end, our company’s financial performance was six times the performance of second-best team.
A variety of groups are concerned in bank profitability for various reasons. The bank shareholders would want to know if the value of their investments is high or low. The investors also use current and past performance to predict future price of the banks’ shares traded on the stock exchanged. The management of the bank as trustee of the shareholders is evaluated and compensated on the basis of how well their decisions and planning have contributed to growth in assets and profits of their banks. Employees of bank also are concerned with profits, since their salaries and promotions are frequently tied to the profitability performance of their banks. Depositors use bank performance and profitability as indicators of security for their deposits in the banks. Finally, business community and general public are concerned about their banks’ performance to the extent that their economic prosperity is linked to the success or failure of their banks.
This is followed in section 5 by an analysis of the recent changes in the banking industry. With the development of the financial system, declining entry barriers and the deregulation of the banking industry make banks no longer the monopoly suppliers of banking services and reduce their comparative advantages which they usually hold in the past. Whether the reasons give rise to the existence of banks are still powerful will be examined here, while section 6 offers a way of considering whether banks are declining by looking at the value added by the banks. When the value added by banks is examined, banks are not a financial intermediation, which not only conduct the traditional services but also provide more diversified