Month: August 2020

Educating Consumers on Mobile Banking Security and Mobile Money Transfer

In this day and age, most people have mobile phones. These cell phones are a necessity for modern man. They can be used to make calls, email, play games and send text messages. Many businesses have integrated special templates on their websites to enable access for mobile phones, granting convenience to those on the move or who are extremely busy and work outdoors. The banking industry has invested heavily in mobile banking for its customers and analysts have continued to analyze how this process is being received in the community.

Big banks want to give their customers easy access to their accounts and thus an impetus to use mobile banking. Customers who use their mobile phones for banking needs save banks a ton of money in employee related costs. So banks have made it their priority to ensure that mobile banking security is assured in order for customers to use the application on their phones. There has been mixed reviews of mobile banking. Some people are not comfortable with using cell phones as they feel they may get hacked and have their personal information taken from them. Others feel that the size of the phone screen is small and they would rather just use a personal computer.

Mobile phones may get lost and all the personal information in them can be used to steal bank account information. So, banks have made it a point to ensure that mobile banking security is encrypted and safe for consumers. The good news for customers is that any fraudulent transactions in an individual’s account will be reimbursed fully if their account is compromised.

Mobile phones may be used to purchase merchandise off the Internet. If one sees a product they like while running errands, they may use their phones to visit the website of the store they were in and buy it using the mobile phones. In addition, it is also easy to send funds through the mobile money transfer capability installed on most phones. This eliminates the hassle of going to stand in line at the bank waiting to see a teller for such services.

The advantage of mobile money transfer is the encryption added to the websites that allow transferring of funds. The applications usually have a small lead time that allows for automated signing out of the platform when not in use thus increasing safety and protecting the customer should the phone get lost.…

Prioritizing Your Duties As A New Manager

To be effective and deliver high levels of performance as a Manager, especially in the face of changing regulations and low morale among some staff in banking and financial services firms, newly-appointed Managers and Team Leaders need to have both a ‘change in mindset’ and clarity on the priorities for their team.

The change in mindset required of you as a new manager will enable you to focus on ensuring that jobs get done, rather than doing the jobs yourself. Managing other peoples’ time and the financial resources of your organisation is not an easy role for some new managers. This is even more difficult if managers spent many years previously measuring their success and effectiveness by the number of tasks they completed alone. In considering priorities for your team, therefore, you should take into consideration immediate/short-term ones and longer-term priorities. The latter will affect not just you and your team but the business as a whole.

A useful place to start is having clarity about your priorities. It is essential that such priorities be communicated to your team. When this is done at the outset, you are able to get support/ ‘buy-in’ for a common or shared team goal. Failure to communicate priorities at the start of assuming duty as a new Team Leader or Manager can result in you being head of a group, rather than leading a team. You may even find yourself faced with the scenario of having multiple agendas and priorities among sub-groups in ‘the team’. The likelihood of this occurring is higher when changes form part of the new priorities and pockets of resistance have developed.

Below are seven pivotal questions you should ask of yourself as a manager, especially if it is your first time ever to manage a team or you have stepped up to performing duties for management of a larger and multi-region team, as part of a global business.

What are my priority/most urgent tasks this week? This should have been planned at least in the previous week and merely updated for any subsequent changes.

What are my plans for the department/team over the next quarter, six months, year,…? Ideally this should be done not only through discussions with your Director/Line Manager but through discussions with members of your team.

Where are the greatest risks to attaining a high level of performance by everyone on my team? In essence, how can I build capability and empower my team to even higher levels of performance.

How do I set common goals and lead/get others to achieve their goals also?

How do I and the team prepare for business/organisation changes over the next year?

What non-financial incentives can I use to reward my team? Financial incentives may not always be the ones valued most highly.

What time management tools can I use most fruitfully to ensure I am effective in performing my duties and meet, if not exceed, all targets?

It is essential that you ask yourself these questions even before you begin your new role. While you may not have all the answers before you start managing your team, you should strive to have those answers within the first 30 days of assuming your managerial role.

The answers you provide to those questions would go a considerable way to helping you get greater depth of clarity in understanding the demands of your role as a team manager and how you can manage the talent in your team and improve your own personal effectiveness and creditability as a Manager or Team Leader.…

A Leader’s Word Should Be Sufficient If We Are To Recover And Restore Integrity

Has there ever been a time when integrity in leadership and example to others has been at such a low level? You can look at sport or business, banking and virtually every area of finance and government, and you will uncover corruption and cheating and men thinking they will never be found out.

Alas they are found out right away, or four or five years later!

Having been reading and studying in Matthew Chapter 5 and the teaching of Jesus Christ in that passage referred to as The Sermon on the Mount, we come across morally high standards which are worthy of study.

Although one could say the ground of this teaching flows from the third Commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”, Jesus Christ is not quoting from any specific passage of Scripture. Jesus is speaking about the law, and the words we use, and the vows we make, and should keep.

The rabbis, at that time, were all so concerned about words, and they were saying that you only need to keep the oaths and vows where the Name of God is involved.

They wanted to have vows which you could slip out of if you so chose. You could swear ‘by heaven’ or ‘by the Temple’ or ‘by the gold of the Temple’ or ‘by Jerusalem’ or ‘by the hair of your head’.

You could swear ‘by Jerusalem’ – that I will give my neighbour his ox back, or whatever I have taken, but because I have not taken the Name of God then I can slip out of it.

That vow or oath or promise was not so binding. They were blind guides!

We read what God actually said in Leviticus Chapter 19 and verse 12 and Numbers Chapter 30 verse 2 and Deuteronomy Chapter 23 and at verse 21.

What is Jesus teaching His disciples and us today? No matter where you lead, and no matter which walk of life you are in, this is the highest and finest and best example to follow.

Because you follow Me, if you are going to go out into the world to represent Me, then you are going to have to be different. Your words matter. Our words do matter.

Do not make silly distinctions. The rabbis were looking at things physically or carnally, whereas Jesus was looking at things spiritually or theologically.

The world is God’s and everything in it. There are not areas of speech or thinking that God does not have access to. He hears and we cannot rule out situations where He is excluded.

We read in this same Chapter of “the city of the great king”. If the Church of Jesus Christ taught clearly on that too today, we would not have this massive problem in the Middle East.

The second thing Jesus teaches here is that we should not need special vows and words. What do we hear people saying – “the fact of the matter is” or “to be honest”?

These phrases are used to make words more weighty and to try to convince people that what we are saying is true.

What Jesus is teaching here regards our integrity. Our word should be enough.

We should know where we stand with Jo Christian, or Josephine Christian.

People should know we are truthful Christians. We do not need to adorn our words.

Jesus is teaching us to go away beyond being superficial, and sounding good, and being hypocritical, and this should be applied to our leadership qualities and demonstrate integrity in every area of life, no matter where we serve and lead.…

Employee Evaluations

Let’s say you’re the boss of an investment banking firm and in order to make your investors happy you need to have good employees. You need to evaluate your employees and have a meeting with them to tell them what they need to do to improve or what they are doing correctly and well. This can be a hard thing to do, and there are many things to avoid as well as many things that you must do to ensure that the process goes as smoothly and as well as possible.

Make sure that all the people working under you have a copy or have or have seen what their job descriptions are. It will be difficult to hold a meeting with someone to improve their work when they do not even know what they are supposed to be doing, and this way they will know what they are being evaluated on and against. If you give the employee a blank copy of the performance evaluation to let them rate themselves before you rate them and have the meeting, then they will have another chance to defend their ratings and their job performance, as well as give them a chance to see the meeting as less of a unilateral ultimatum than an opportunity to discuss possibilities for improvement on even neutral ground. You should also make sure you set a time and place to meet the employee that is private and quiet, because you don’t want to attract attention to the person and embarrass them in front of their coworkers or ridicule them in front of their peers. Time is important as well. You don’t want to make the meeting too short, because you may find that there are many issues that need to be addressed, that the meeting is more productive than anticipated, or that you are cut short before anything useful gets done. If you have an hour dedicated to the employee, it shows that you really care about their performance and their growth in the company, and lets them know that you’re on their side when it comes to keeping them on your team at the company. Before you get started, outline what you want to go over in the session, whether that is improving the person’s performance, reward them for performing well, or get some feedback from them or other goals.

Try not to do all of the talking in the meeting, you want to make it seem as even as possible, a fair discussion between two people. Ask some questions and let the person let you know their perspective and what they think they need. If there is a large disagreement, allow the employee to write their own point of view down so that it can be kept in their file. If you make your employee, the meeting will be unproductive, so don’t focus only on areas of improvement. If you spend equal time on what they are doing right as on what they need to improve on, they will be much more optimistic and agreeable about whatever improvements they need to make.…

Choosing a Bank

It is important that you determine what you need in a bank and then choose accordingly. Some people hate to pay monthly fees for checking accounts, even if they are just five or ten dollars a month. If that sounds familiar, you will want to ask, in advance, what a bank’s checking account charges will be. Usually, that involves knowing what balance you are likely to keep in the checking account and knowing what will be charged if your balance drops below that level.

What banks can offer you

Along those lines, perhaps the bank that offers you the ability to have your checking and savings accounts, individual retirement accounts (IRAs), credit cards, and mortgage all at the same place might be the most appropriate. If the total assets in your account can be used to calculate your minimum balance, that is a good feature to have. If this helps you stay organized and manage your finances, it is even better.

National presence of a bank

Another item to evaluate is whether the bank has a national presence. This may be particularly helpful is you tend to travel a lot. That way, you aren’t continually getting stuck with fees from ATMs. If it is likely that you will move several times, you may want a bank with a national presence so that you don’t need to transfer all of your accounts

Telephone bill payment service or online banking service

If you are attempting to save time, you will probably want to make certain that your bank has either a telephone bill payment service or online banking service that lets you pay bills and monitor your account anytime using the Internet. There are actually a handful of banks that have sprung up during the last several years that do nothing but provide online banking. These banks are attractive to new depositors because they typically pay higher interest rates on deposits in order to win new customers. If you believe in maximizing your ability to earn every possible dollar, then you will probably want to explore using such a bank. However, do always take note of possible hidden caveats, be careful to always look at the fine print!

In Conclusion

Banks now come in many different shapes and sizes and offer customers a much wider variety of services from which to choose. Maximize your time and money, and select the bank that will do the most for you.…

What is the History of Blood Banks?

A blood bank is a bank of blood or blood components, gathered as a result of blood donations, stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusions. “History of Blood Banks” by 1901 Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian physician, whom we see as the most important individual in the field of human blood, categorized the first three human Blood groups A, B and O.

Without this discovery and the subsequent research, there would be no blood banking as we know it today. 1936 Bernard Fantus, the then director of therapeutics at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, established the first Blood bank in the United States thus creating a hospital laboratory that can preserve and store donor Bloods. In 1940 Dr Charles Drew, a graduate of McGill University Medical School in Montreal, researched and found a technique for the long-term preservation of Blood plasma. This all brought us to what follows.

During 1947 The American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) was formed to “promote common goals among Blood banking facilities and the American Blood donating public.” Then in 1950 Carl Walter and W.P. Murphy, Jr., introduced the plastic bag for blood collection. On its own this does not seem like any big thing at all but by the simple act of replacing breakable glass bottles with durable plastic bags allowed for the evolution of a collection system capable of safe and easy preparation of multiple blood components from a single unit of Whole Blood.

So in 1979 An anticoagulant preservative, CPDA-1 was now introduced. It decreased wastage from expiration and facilitated resource sharing among blood banks. Newer solutions contain adenine and extend the shelf life of red cells to 42 days. The need for blood donors is a never ending gift we can freely give our fellow man so if you are not a regular donor seriously look at this. It may be you who needs the blood one day.…

Banking Options For Expats

Emigrating to another country and immersing yourself into a new culture can be hard work, but utterly rewarding once you are there and settled. Yet, despite the fact the term ’emigration’ can so often connote tearful goodbyes and one way tickets half way round the world, the truth is (at least according to the latest Halifax survey) that when UK residents do leave the country for work or retirement, they actually move very close to home – and if not just across the channel (like 16 percent of us) they are likely to relocate to the Eurozone. So what are the banking options open to those considering moving to Europe?

Country specific non-resident accounts

When it comes to opening a bank account abroad, if you are not yet a resident of the country it is imperative to research whether such options are available to you. In France for example, non-residents can apply for what is known as a ‘compte non-résident’. Typical differences between standard accounts and compte non-resident are that the latter may not include a credit card or overdraft facilities. However, once you have been settled in France for three months you will be able to open a current account as a resident if you wish to.

Euro Account

Another option available to those moving to another European country is to open a Euro Account. Euro accounts are essentially UK accounts in which the money held within is in Euros instead of sterling. The key to finding the best Euro account is to do your research and to keep flexibility in mind. For instance, an account with no currency conversion charges, and no charges on European ATMs will likely be very useful for those who spend a considerable amount of time in both the UK and abroad. Multi-currency accounts are also available from some banks.

Offshore Bank Account

Offshore bank accounts (or international bank accounts, as they have come to be known) are also a popular option for those moving abroad. It is good to spend the time researching different account providers in order to find the best interest rates, as it is typical to find better returns on your savings abroad than you would if you kept your money in a UK account. Offshore accounts are great for accessing you cash from both the UK and your new country of residence – which is great for avoiding those timely money transfers. You can also bank with multiple currencies and access you money at any time day or night.

If you are moving abroad it is worth exploring all of the above options, and discussing with your banking adviser.…

Where is the Trillion?

As our instant historians analyze the first financial crisis of 2010 and panic subsides, it is apparent there is one thing we one thing we might know. It is obvious to the forensic financial analysts that the trillion dollars lost in the crash did not make its way to Greece. The World Bank, propped up by helicopter Ben, the international monetary fund and the European Union, felt obligated to grease the printing presses- and crank out a trillion of Fiat currency.

Where should we look then? The silence of China and the petroleum sheiks is certainly deafening. And the mattress of any contributor to the bailout fund is not a place to hide a billion, much less one trillion. We are left to realize that the only storehouse large enough to hide one trillion is Switzerland! If the trillion is housed in the Swiss banking system then we will never know who gamed the financial trading system.

Uncommon sense gleaned from this incident could spare some of the flock from being consumed by the wolf pack. Those who don’t use their intellect will soon discover their treasured “9 to 5” has become “24 ” – even Jack Bauer can not save it. Why would you trust your government enough to invest in its flimsy paper currency when it can’t account for its own spending. Of course, you wouldn’t!.

We all know the well-worn phrase ‘cream rises to the top’. Last century’s common sense and propaganda sold us on the fact that cream is fat, bad fat, and detrimental to our health. Today after over fifty years of research nutritionists and physicians tell us that artificially created fats kill faster than natural animal fats. What is one to believe?

Almost the same amount of corporate and government misinformation has been sold to us concerning the cream of monetary value, gold. Before this decade comes to an end it will be proven ancient wisdom was correct. Gold is not king – it is cream!

Prepare for the worst – pray for better.…

The Public Option in Banking – How We Can Beat Wall Street at Its Own Game

In Wall Street’s latest affront to the public trust, the nine mega-banks graced with $125 billion in taxpayer bailout money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) were reported on July 30, 2009, to be paying out billions of dollars in bonuses to their executives. At least 4,793 bankers and traders received more than $1 million each in bonus payments, although it was one of Wall Street’s worst years on record. After months of investigating banker compensation, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said, “The repeated explanation from bank executives that bonuses are tied to performance in a manner designed to promote (national economic) growth does not appear to be accurate.”

To say that it was an understatement would be an understatement. The bonuses paid to executives not only were not tied to national economic growth but were not even tied to some reasonable percentage of company profits. In fact they were generally greater than the net income of the banks. Morgan Stanley, for example, had $1.7 billion in earnings and paid $4.475 billion in bonuses. Goldman Sachs had $2.3 billion in earnings and paid $4.8 billion in bonuses. JP Morgan Chase had $5.6 billion in earnings and paid $8.69 billion in bonuses. JP Morgan’s largesse involved showering 1,626 of its favorite execs and traders with bonuses of $1 million or more. For most people, a “bonus” is a few hundred dollars at Christmastime. A million dollars is what you work a lifetime to try to save, and few people reach that goal. Even Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which have been called zombie banks, paid $5.33 billion and $3.6 billion in bonuses, respectively — although they lost more than $27 billion each in earnings. The bar for merit is apparently so low that you’re entitled to a bonus if your zombie bank simply keeps breathing!

These blatantly inflated bonuses are just the last in a litany of abuses by those same profligate banks that nearly destroyed our economic system. If the derivatives on their books were “marked to market” (valued at what they would fetch on the market), the banks would be bankrupt, and their employees would be out of a job. Instead, they have been allowed to inflate the value of their “toxic” assets – and sell them to the U.S. government at the inflated value. Then they have taken the money they got from the government at these inflated prices and paid back the TARP money they received – allowing them to post inflated earnings and reward themselves with inflated bonuses! Many people feel that these bankers are thieves stealing from the public till who should be looking at jail time. But who is there to stop their parade of outrages? No one in Congress, the White House, or the news media is calling them on the carpet for it. As Senator Dick Durbin said recently, Wall Street owns Congress; and that is also true of the major media.

We may not be able to stop them, but we can join them. We the people need to play the bankers’ game ourselves. Even corporate giants such as General Motors and WalMart have now gotten into the banking game and are easing their credit problems by forming their own banks. The U.S. public sector is late to the party. States, counties, public universities could take the lucrative system the private banking industry has created for itself and turn it to productive use in the public interest.

KEEPING THE BANKS HONEST WITH SOME PUBLIC COMPETITION

In President Obama’s July 17 weekly address, he repeated his call for a public option in health care, in order to “increase competition and keep insurance companies honest” and to “put an end to the worst practices of the insurance industry.” The same call needs to be made for a public option in banking. In some countries, publicly-owned banks have operated alongside privately-owned banks for decades; and in those countries, the current crisis has served to show that public banks generally do a better job of serving the people and protecting their interests than their private counterparts.

In Canada, the trendsetter in public banking is the province of Alberta. Alberta’s publicly-owned banking system, called Alberta Treasury Branches or ATB, was initiated during the Great Depression to give the private banks a run for the public’s money. According to a government publication titled “These Are the Facts: An Authentic Record of Alberta’s Progress, 1935-1948”:

“The Treasury Branch system enables the people to pool their financial resources and to use these resources for their mutual benefit thereby enabling them to progressively free themselves from the stranglehold of the existing financial monopoly. These Treasury Branches provide effective competition for chartered banks thereby …