Month: October 2020

Types of Commercial Law

Commercial Law is law relating to business, and often referred to as Business Law. There are many areas of Commercial Law and other areas of law that also affect business. Below is a summary of some of these.

ARBITRATION LAW

This is a way of settling legal disputes without entering the courtroom, something that can be helpful to many businesses. It involves someone, or a committee, acting as an arbitrator and independently looking at a case before making a decision as to a way forward. Usually in these cases the two parties will agree (and sign a legally binding contract) to go by whichever decision the arbitrator makes.

CONTRACT LAW

Throughout business, there are obviously many contracts of all types. There are contracts between employers and employee, stating details such as employees pay, holiday, working hours and what the job entails. There are also contracts between businesses and their clients stating what the business will deliver and how much they will be paid, and then there are contracts between businesses and other institutions, such as banks. Contract Law states the way in which contracts must be formatted and what should be included. Whether or not a contract is legally binding is sometimes argued. Contracts might be unreasonable or the contents illegal. There can also be disputes as to whether the terms of a contract have been broken, something that is illegal.

BANKING LAW

This includes and dealings involving banks and their relationships with a business. There are many regulations around banking so it is important for financial institutions to make sure they are following the law. There are regulations stating what banks are obliged to do, and what they must not do. There can be disputes between banks and businesses that go to court such as non-paid loans or banks acting unreasonably.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Unsurprisingly there are often disputes between businesses, or between and business and an individual. If clients are unhappy with the service they have received they may contest it. This means it is important that businesses fulfil their obligations; if they don’t they could be legally challenged.

EMPLOYMENT LAW

There are many laws around this area, which both employers and employees must fulfil. Employees must be paid at least minimum wage and are entitled to at least 4 weeks paid holiday (pro rata) per year. Employees must show up for work and do the job they are being paid for. There may be many other terms in a contract.

TAX LAW

All individuals and businesses who earn over a certain amount must pay tax. Employees who earn over the tax threshold must pay income tax. This is automatically taken from their pay as a percentage of their earning, which varies depending on what they are paid. Those who are self employed are responsible for working out their own tax, and will be held accountable should they fail to do so. Corporations must pay corporate tax on a percentage of their profits, although they can deduct money from their profits used for business expenses. This can be complex, and the law deals with those who break the law.

Andrew Marshall (c)…

Banking With Chase Bank

Established in 2004, Chase Bank is one of the largest banking institutions and a subsidiary of J P Morgan of the US. Chase Bank has a long history of mergers and acquisitions. Earlier it was known as Chase Manhattan Bank until it merged with JPMorgan in 2000. It has assets worth $2 trillion. It provides a variety of financial services to consumers and organizations. The bank is headquartered in Chicago and its branches are located in almost the entire country.

Every customer of the bank has access to online banking. Through this service anybody can operate accounts from any place and at any time they want. First you have to open online account. Once your account is created, you can login to your account with a unique username and a password provided at the time of account creation One you login to your account, you can now enjoy all types of online services of the bank.

Also you can avail various types of loan products like fixed rate, renovation mortgages, interest-only mortgages, ARM products, conforming mortgage loans and subprime mortgage loans. Chase Mortgage’s customer service helps the consumers in deciding which mortgage products to apply for. Chase mortgage loan products are ideal for first timer home buyers and also for refinancing the existing mortgage on their homes. Recently, Chase announced its merger with

Chase bank has a swift code which is very useful in doing international transfers of funds electronically. The swift code for Chase Bank is CHASUS33.

One of the saving options offered by the bank is Money Market Account. You can earn a higher interest when you have more balance and motivates you to save more. There is 2$ fee for ATM withdrawal from a non-Chase ATM. Chase money market interest rates are competitive and affordable in nature.

Few of the various types of credit cards offered by the bank are Freedom Visa Card, Slate, Sapphire Visa, INK business card etc. There are various features associated with this cards like cash back offers on purchase, rewards and bonus points. Also you can also invest in Chase CD as the rates are good and it is a good investment option.…

Lines of Credit Can Be Life Lines For Businesses

Business lines of credit are generally used for the typical ups and downs of cash flow. When we had our computer business, we started on a very small loan from a major bank because the banker believed in our plan. She loaned us money against a Mercedes. We used that loan to buy our first computer from IBM. I will not tell you the model number as that would date me! But it did start a software business that eventually became a major company in our state and competed against IBM, EDS, Southern Bell and other well know national companies. But I get ahead of myself, sorry! My point is that business lines of credit allowed us to build a company that was strong and healthy.

Okay, it’s time to talk seriously about you and your needed business lines of credit. First, if you already have a relationship with a bank and they have not been talking to you about extending you lines of credit, then you should think about changing banks. Remember, you are the client and the bank should be courting you and promoting their services to you.

As with all shopping, you need to know what you want from the lending institution, and understand how the working relationship will change and grow. You need to know why you want a credit line, how you are going to use it and most important (to the banker) is how you will repay it. Don’t forget, this is a long term relationship that you will be building with the bank or lending institution. Business lines of credit can be renewed almost indefinitely if, in fact, you hold up your end of the bargain.

Let the institution sell you on the idea of using their money; but be careful, not to let yourself be sold a bill of goods. Understand that business lines of credit are temporary loans where you control the amounts drawn and when you draw them. For example: this month you may need extra cash, then after you pay it back, you may not need to use a draw for the next few months. The point is, the resources are available immediately, when you need them.

Business lines of credit are essential for the long term growth of any company, and the wise application of the use will give your company the extra strength and stability that will see you through the inevitable down cycles.…

Banking Abroad – Where to Go With Your Money

In banking abroad, first you need to pick a safe country for your funds, one that is not likely to have a revolution soon, and that is not suffering from 200% inflation every year that would soon dry up your funds into nothing.

Then pick a currency to invest in which is “strong” – that means if the value of the currency changes, it goes UP, not down, relative to the U.S. dollar. When a friend of mine left the U.S. a little while ago to spend a year in Europe, she bought travelers’ checks from an American company, but denominated in Deutsche Marks, not dollars.

That way, she did not have to worry about not being able to cash those checks if the dollar became weak and no foreign bank would want to change her dollar travelers’ checks into the local currency, as had happened a few years before,

Methods and techniques you should know

Keeping your money overseas usually means as a deposit in a foreign bank. Most large foreign banks in money centers like London or Switzerland can correspond in English, and if you write to them, they will give you whatever information you need to invest profitably…

Information like, different kinds of accounts available at their banks; interest rates paid (which vary according to the currency of your deposit, higher rates on riskier U.S. dollar accounts, lower rates on stronger Swiss francs); limitations, if any, on bringing currency in or out of their country; services the bank will provide for extra fees, like providing safe deposit boxes for gold bars, or investing your money through the bank into other countries.

Most people who send their money abroad send it to Switzerland, where bankers handle international investing for accounts all over the world, But Austria or London will do as well for most needs. There are also branches of foreign banks, in major U.S. cities, which will give you information on investing in their home branches, and in some cases will handle some of the forms and communications with the foreign bank for you.

If you communicate with overseas banks directly, it is often a good idea to have your signature notarized at an American bank, to give the foreign bankers some added assurance of your identification. These are some of the stuff you need to know when banking abroad.…

Your Windows File Registry Works Hard So That You Don’t Have To

You download a file from the internet. Your Windows file registry updates your information, clearing a path for your CPU to find the file. You update your preferences for one of your applications. Your Windows file registry carefully preserves the changes, assuring that your CPU will honor your new preferences the next time it opens the application. You add another public place to the list of internet connections you use regularly. Better still, your new Google android phone works as a hot spot for up to eight wireless devices, so you add your computer. Your Windows file registry automatically saves all this connection data, so that your browser and link software can connect with the worldwide web exactly as you wish. Using your bank’s online bill-paying service keeps all your accounts up to date. Your Windows file registry records all the digits and data, so that you quickly and easily can repeat the bill-paying procedures again next month.

Working diligently on your PC all day, you inadvertently trigger up to a hundred or more changes in your file registry, because it tailor-makes your computing experience to the flow and style of your work. Microsoft engineers and programmers planned it that way. Every inadvertent change, however, leaves a few tracks and traces, a few file fragments and a little bit of binary debris. Not a problem. Except that, over time, the fragments and debris accumulate in your Windows file registry, complicating the CPU’s pathways to the data it needs to run at its best.

You remove the clutter and debris with a reputable, reliable Windows file registry cleaner. In regular use, a scan-clean-repair-optimize program keeps your PC running at peak efficiency, and it protects you against piracy and identity theft.

Think about how many ways you left your PC vulnerable in the course of an ordinary day’s work: As you added public wireless connections, you put yourself at-risk of intruders to your network. When you added your cell phone hot spot, you increased that risk. Once the portals were open, then, your bill-paying tasks put your financial information at risk of theft by spyware, adware, or malware, all of which track your internet use and some which have the capacity to capture your digits. Some of the most malicious malware evades detection by all but the most sophisticated and up-to-date browser and file registry protection.

Despite what you may have read or overheard, you need both a high-powered security suite and a good registry cleaner. To keep your Windows file registry clean and clear for your CPU, choose the best registry cleaning software.…

Basic Information on Performance Measurement in Banking Sphere or What Are the Banking KPIs?

It goes without saying that monthly profitability reporting at most large banks is a very sophisticated, and meticulously developed system. Sure, most of these are flawless frameworks that reflect the overall success of the bank unit, yet not all of them can point out the cause-and-effect relations between different financial and non-financial factors contributing to the overall performance. For this reason, many bank executives opt for metrics that will assist them in analyzing and understanding the state of affairs from different, non-financial perspectives. This is where Balanced Scorecard and Key Performance Indicators come into play. In this article we are going to dwell upon the advantages of the BSc approach in banking sphere and give examples of the most common banking KPIs.

Typical Banking KPIs

The Scorecard approach is very beneficial for banking industry, since it gives a holistic view of the company’s performance from other perspectives, beyond a purely financial aspect. A typical balanced framework includes four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, and Learning and Growth. These have subcomponents which reflect the innermost drivers of the whole enterprise. These subcomponents are also known as Key Performance Indicators. So, let’s try to identify the ‘levers’ that impacts the overall success of the bank the most:

ROI (Return on Investment). These measures provide a snapshot of overall cost-efficiency of the business entity. These could be Return on Operating Capital, Return on Capital Employed, Return on Equity, and may more.

Cost-related measures. These include Overheads, Cost to Income, and Cost to Assets Ratios.

Income-related measures. These metrics reflect indicators dealing with profit. One of the most common are Gross Profit, Interest Rate Differential, Fee Income Level and Non-Interest Income Level.

Interest Margin Measures: Interest, Profit, Operating Margins and other indicators.

In addition to these, other different indicators can be used (risk metrics, company assets metrics, etc.). Although it is possible to find ready-made strategy evaluation frameworks with relevant KPIs, it is essential to adjust them according to your particular business entity interests. Below we are going to give some tips on selecting the most effective indicators for your business.

Tips on Designing BSCs in Banking Industry

Identifying KPIs and building the entire business strategy evaluation system is a very responsible task that requires profound understanding of the innermost processes of the enterprise. Most business owners hire experienced BSC designer to have this job done. By hiring experts you increase your chances to get a profoundly designed framework that will meet your particular business unit’s needs, as well as minimize the amount of the most common mistakes in business evaluation system designing.

One of the most common mistakes in creating performance evaluating frameworks is too much key performance indicators. It is advisable to identify only the most essential metrics for your industry, instead of cluttering the framework with unnecessary figures. With too many measures it is difficult to get a transparent, comprehensible picture of the business state of affairs. Moreover, by creating too much KPIs you will distract your employees from their direct duties.…

The International Bank Wire Transfer And Its Utilities

The nation from which the money transfer is taking place to the nation where the payment has to be made clear, use the similar format of file and this keeps a number of consistency in the transaction. The network of bank to bank is made use and it allows the transfer to be known as local transfers and keeps away from the fees on any international transaction.

International bank wire transfer possibly will be somewhat a difficult matter. Nevertheless, a number of preceding information about a course of action may well lend a hand to you to be aware of the dynamics of all of it superior. For case in point, this kind of bank transfer is such a characteristic of a banking deal, which has highly famous because of its range of advantages. Until that time, the most accepted technique of transferring money crossways the sphere to diverse nations was all the way through the wire transfer. It is an exceptionally trustworthy opportunity though tremendously exclusive and the outlay of getting along with sending wire transfers made everyone to search for an alternative.

The international bank wire transfer performs by way of a specific format along with the files being kept in precise formats matched for the transfer. It effectively reveals that such coded format can be managed as well as accessed only by the banks, and will be not by any further person.

The whole course of action of transferring money electronically is enormously efficient and all the difficult dispensation of transfer and authorization crossways country borders is eliminated completely. An additional most important advantage is that it eliminates the need to keep up numerous accounts crosswise the globe to permit the authorization of the money at what time it is transferred. The money is collected and transferred, and then, paid out all the way through a number of local transaction mode of the a variety of nations, and it is proficient through a sole connection of electronic funds transfer.

Cheap fees of the international bank wire transfer system permits for extensive savings in view of the fact that, the clearance in addition to completion of accounts is kept on at the local level. There is identical system of delivery and it applies from corner to corner of the world. The charge for conversion of currency also works out to be a lot lower, compared than further cases.

An account for recurring payment possibly will be generated for a single occasion and the similar thing may be utilized on each time a transaction has to be kept on to the similar bank account. Such kind of international bank transfers performs incredibly fine when a great number of transfers have to be made.…

The Great Financial Crisis of 2007

The storm that nearly destroyed the global banking system appeared in the eyes of many observers as something terrible and sudden, striking without warning. Of course the experts were aware of the credit boom, the unprecedented rise in US property prices and the proliferation of esoteric credit products from CLOs to “CDOs-squared”. PhD-wielding quantitative analysts, or “quants”, occupied prime positions in every major investment bank.

The champagne was flowing at securitization forums in Las Vegas and Barcelona and the City of London was touted as the miracle engine that powered the Blair economy. Wall Street basked in a golden age unseen since the days of Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen in the eponymous motion picture. Banks were not mere issuers and arrangers but often aggressive investors in mortgage-backed securitizations. They kept the junior retained tranches in transactions and their “prop”, or proprietary trading, desks actively speculated in asset-backed products.

By the summer of 2007, the first increases in defaults and delinquencies in U.S. sub-prime mortgage rates were visible as interest rates crept upwards. Yet a pervasive belief that residential property had never suffered a national decline in value still held sway, a belief as erroneous as the “Dow 40,000” rhetoric that had powered the Nineties equity and tech bubbles. Yet no-one, from policymakers to economists, anticipated the ferocity of the new storm front when it actually struck.

The first straws in the wind were felt in July and August 2007, as asset backed commercial paper conduits (ABCP) began to seize up. Suddenly investor demand fell away and liquidity issues started affecting this corner of the wholesale banking markets. Various attempts were made to re-ignite the ABCP markets, including a Canadian conference, but nothing seemed to work. Even then, this was viewed as a local problem with limited impact on the real economy, where business continued to boom. Few however had anticipated the reliance of the banking system on wholesale money markets for their daily liquidity needs.

So the next sudden and unprecedented shock that hit the U.K. in 2007 was the collapse of Northern Rock. An assertive regional lender, this institution had transformed itself from a sleepy Newcastle-based mutual society to an expansionist and dynamic organisation. Its speciality was financing marginal borrowers with poor credit histories and offering loan-to-value ratios in the frothy British property markets. Northern Rock’s “Together” products famously combined a mortgage and a secured loan up to a value of 125% of the property, and were relentlessly promoted on television. Then suddenly the share price fell, and chief executive Adam Applegarth was forced to admit that funding had, quite literally, dried up. The first British banking bail-out since the nineteenth century had taken place. The reputation of the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, never quite recovered. The Labour government, which had blessed the boom years and indeed contributed to them with its own unfunded increases in public spending, was suddenly politically exposed.

As 2007 ended the British and American economies continued to power ahead. Ominously, the share prices of major high street banks continued to fall but talk of falling house prices was dismissed as scaremongering. Few could have imagined that within a year the entire global banking system would have come close to a fatal cardiac arrest. The venerable House of Lehman would be dust and great names from the Royal Bank of Scotland to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae would be wards of the state. The great sovereign debt crisis of the European periphery, that began in the fjords of Reykjavik and flowed via the River Liffey onto the streets of Athens, was about to begin.…

Eastern European Banking Model

A traditional banking model in a CEEC (Central and Eastern European Country) consisted of a central bank and several purpose banks, one dealing with individuals’ savings and other banking needs, and another focusing on foreign financial activities, etc. The central bank provided most of the commercial banking needs of enterprises in addition to other functions. During the late 1980s, the CEECs modified this earlier structure by taking all the commercial banking activities of the central bank and transferring them to new commercial banks. In most countries the new banks were set up along industry lines, although in Poland a regional approach has been adopted.

On the whole, these new stale-owned commercial banks controlled the bulk of financial transactions, although a few ‘de novo banks’ were allowed in Hungary and Poland. Simply transferring existing loans from the central bank to the new state-owned commercial banks had its problems, since it involved transferring both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ assets. Moreover, each bank’s portfolio was restricted to the enterprise and industry assigned to them and they were not allowed to deal with other enterprises outside their remit.

As the central banks would always ‘bale out’ troubled state enterprises, these commercial banks cannot play the same role as commercial banks in the West. CEEC commercial banks cannot foreclose on a debt. If a firm did not wish to pay, the state-owned enterprise would, historically, receive further finance to cover its difficulties, it was a very rare occurrence for a bank to bring about the bankruptcy of a firm. In other words, state-owned enterprises were not allowed to go bankrupt, primarily because it would have affected the commercial banks, balance sheets, but more importantly, the rise in unemployment that would follow might have had high political costs.

What was needed was for commercial banks to have their balance sheets ‘cleaned up’, perhaps by the government purchasing their bad loans with long-term bonds. Adopting Western accounting procedures might also benefit the new commercial banks.

This picture of state-controlled commercial banks has begun to change during the mid to late 1990s as the CEECs began to appreciate that the move towards market-based economies required a vibrant commercial banking sector. There are still a number of issues lo be addressed in this sector, however. For example, in the Czech Republic the government has promised to privatize the banking sector beginning in 1998. Currently the banking sector suffers from a number of weaknesses. A number of the smaller hanks appear to be facing difficulties as money market competition picks up, highlighting their tinder-capitalization and the greater amount of higher-risk business in which they are involved. There have also been issues concerning banking sector regulation and the control mechanisms that are available. This has resulted in the government’s proposal for an independent securities commission to regulate capital markets.

The privatization package for the Czech Republic’s four largest banks, which currently control about 60 percent of the sector’s assets, will also allow foreign banks into a highly developed market where their influence has been marginal until now. It is anticipated that each of the four banks will be sold to a single bidder in an attempt to create a regional hub of a foreign bank’s network. One problem with all four banks is that inspection of their balance sheets may throw up problems which could reduce the size of any bid. All four banks have at least 20 percent of their loans as classified, where no interest has been paid for 30 days or more. Banks could make provisions to reduce these loans by collateral held against them, but in some cases the loans exceed the collateral. Moreover, getting an accurate picture of the value of the collateral is difficult since bankruptcy legislation is ineffective. The ability to write off these bad debts was not permitted until 1996, but even if this route is taken then this will eat into the banks’ assets, leaving them very close to the lower limit of 8 percent capital adequacy ratio. In addition, the ‘commercial’ banks have been influenced by the action of the national bank, which in early 1997 caused bond prices to fall, leading to a fall in the commercial banks’ bond portfolios. Thus the banking sector in the Czech Republic still has a long way to go.

In Hungary the privatization of the banking sector is almost complete. However, a state rescue package had to be agreed at the beginning of 1997 for the second-largest state bank, Postabank, owned indirectly by the main social security bodies and the post office, and this indicates the fragility of this sector. Outside of the difficulties experienced with Postabank, the Hungarian banking system has been transformed. The rapid move towards privatization resulted from the problems experienced by the state-owned banks, which the government …

Private Wealth Management – 5 Tips For Choosing the Right Firm

Finding the right wealth manager is crucially important if you want to see your wealth grow safely. The fleecing of clients in “retail banking” is unfortunately common, but you can use these 5 tips to make an informed choice.

1) Do you really need a wealth manager? Often what people are really looking for is a way to trade shares and other financial instruments. In this case, a reputable online brokerage service could make more sense.

2) Find out who will actually be the one managing your wealth. The jovial middle-aged gentleman you had lunch with may be delegating the majority of his client-work to subordinates who may not have the experience to execute your transactions accurately. Look for concrete formal qualifications and training (e.g. CPA, CFA).

3) Think about the type of wealth management firm you want to invest with. The private banking arms of large well-known banks will often have better facilities, in-house trading teams and analysts for a large variety of sectors – all resources you can use to your advantage. The flipside is that advisors may always lead by suggesting the bank’s own investment funds to financially inexperienced clients, regardless of whether they are the best performers. If you are thinking of investing in a certain area, a smaller private bank with experience in that region may give you superior service.

4) Check the small print. While the entry fee may be less than you expected, keep an eye out for “hidden fees”, like percentage charges for entering a fund. Unscrupulous advisors may suggest changing funds 3-4 times a year, picking up a bonus at each turnover. This is how many of the large private banking services really milk their clients.

5) How financially secure is the bank? For some investors, the priority is not so much to grow their wealth, but to not LOSE money. Seek opinions from multiple sources on the bank in question. If your wealth is to be invested in the private bank’s own funds and financial instruments it pays to research its financial health. Similarly, check if the bank has pending compliance or regulatory issues.

If, like many, you just need a secure, private place to park your money with access to financial tools – “self-directed” Private banking can save you a great deal.

What does “self-directed” private banking mean? Its the same personal attention and quality of service you would get from a traditional private bank account, except you are in charge of investment choices. The wealth managers will execute your orders, but not advise to buy/sell, or otherwise touch your account without your express permission.…