A Report on NatWest Bank and an Analysis of the Banking Industry 1. Introduction This report focuses on NatWest and the industry in which it operates. The purpose of the report is to give a concise but accurate view of how NatWest operates as an organisation and the links between its environment, in this case the banking industry. Company History =============== National Westminster Bank came into being in 1968 when National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank merged and began trading on 1st January 1970. This allowed the bank to expand and venture into new services such as credit cards and computer-linked cash dispensers. The 1980’s saw deregulation of the financial markets which eventually culminated in the ‘Big Bang’ in 1986, National Westminster Bank seized this opportunity and entered the securities business acquiring stockbroking and jobbing firms to create NatWest Investment Bank. The Group’s International Banking Division focused on expanding into international banking services and into The USA, the Far East and Europe. In the 1980’s new services were introduced as technology advanced such as telephone banking and the Switch debit card which extended the use of the electronic transfer of money to the point of sale. The Organisation also moved into more markets with inception of National Westminster Home Loans and the Small Business Unit in 1980 and 1982 respectively. However the recession and changing financial services environment of the 1990’s forced the bank to withdraw from many markets and refocus its activities, adopting the name NatWest. The apparent limitations with which the bank found i... ... middle of paper ... ...s and to give the organisation a sounder footing should the market become more competitive in the near future. Possible drawbacks with such an online service would be security threats to accounts held by online customers. Also the broader issue of an anti-competitive industry may withhold such an expansion by one of the market leaders. 5. Bibliography 1. Gerry Johnson & Kevan Scholes (2002) Exploring Corporate Strategy Sixth Edition. London: Prentice Hall. 2. Henry Mintzberg, James Brian Quinn, & Sumantra Ghoshal (1995) The Strategy Process: European Edition London: Prentice-Hall 3. http://www.bankreview.org.uk/ 4. http://www.bankfacts.org.uk/ 5. www.LemonAid.net (National Association of Bank and Insurance Customers) 6. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business Appendices ----------
In their work, Plato and Paulo Freire have offered harsh critiques of education and learning. Plato compares people to prisoners in a cave of darkness in relation to knowledge, and Freire refers to a “Banking Concept” of education in which teachers put their thoughts and information into students’ minds much like the deposition of money into a bank. Instead of this money being of value, Freire and Plato acknowledge that the value declines. Although many people refute the concept of accepting new knowledge and admission of mistakes, I claim that both Plato and Freire produce valid points about the corruption of education because people cannot learn unless they have an open mind and truly desire to learn. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the effectiveness of learning and continuing the cycle of education.
Barclays shares were trading as high as around 790p in 2007. At that time, few people could have thought that the share price of the company would dramatically drop within the next couple of years, to reach a low of just over 50p. Even though it’s trading now at three times that price at 150p, the company’s future seems highly uncertain.
The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the establishment of banks in the Caribbean largely as a convenience for the local governments. Throughout much of the nineteenth century, most Caribbean banks operated as an oligopoly with limited government influence – this directly translated into higher profits. However, over time, the banking environment could best be described as complex and dynamic. Competition increased, resulting into greater need for improved customer service, product innovation and cost reduction strategies. In order to achieve this, the banking sector was undergoing major structural reforms characterized by mergers and acquisitions. On July 23, 2001 Barclays and CIBC announced that they were in advanced discussions which were intended to lead to the combination of their retail, corporate and offshore banking operations in the Caribbean.
Santander which was previously known as “Sovereign Bank” is a diverse commercial bank currently with around 15,000 branches internationally, over 193,000 employees and more than 100 million customers. Their success has been reached through their close relationship with their customers allowing them to have a functional method when it comes to lending to their customers. Since its entrance into the United Kingdom market, they have successfully transformed the three businesses that they have obtained. The three business included were Abbey National, Bradford and Bingley, and Alliance and Leicester.
The London Stock Exchange is the largest market in the world for trading foreign
Barclays’ Internal and External Customers Barclays offers a wide range of services to both internal and external customers. Internal customers are member of staff/colleagues that work in an organisation. Examples of internal customers in Barclays include: Small Business Managers, Customer Relations Team, telephone operators, Financial Planning Managers, Customer Service staff, Counter staff, Accountants, Consumer Relations Team, and Relationship Managers. External customers are the majority of individuals who lives in the local areas. Examples of external customers of Barclays include: disabled people, elderly, foreign people, parents, couples, widows, divorcees and students (from schools, colleges, and universities).
Initially the bank’s core banking system was product oriented, but the need of the hour was to develop a customer oriented system, because the challenge is to build customer loyalty, cross sell, and enhance repeat business.
Discuss how administrative agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) take action in order to be effective in preventing high-risk gambles in securities / banking, a foundation of the economy.
Barclays group PLC is one of the largest financial providers in America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and Middle East. , It which is mainly engaged deals with credit cards, retail banking, investment banking, corporate banking, and wealth management. The bank is made up of investment and corporate banking, global retail banking and wealth management, each of which has several business units (Burn, Cartwright &Maudsley, 2009).
It is a known fact that the banking industry plays a huge role in today’s society, the industry has grown rapidly of many decades and still growing. The banking sector is that sector of the society that is actually responsible for the handling of financial assets for other sector of the economy, they do this by investing the financial assets in order to create more wealth in the society while regulating all the activities involved in the process. (What is the banking Sector 2015)
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.
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