Fraud Fears in Internet Banking 1.Introduction Dissertation

Fraud Fears in Internet Banking 1.Introduction - Dissertation Example Banking industry is no different; banking operations and processes have become more accessible and convenient for the customers due to the introduction of internet banking. Banking operations are no longer restricted to the limited business hours of the bank, rather can be done at any time via the internet. However, this technology has also proved to make customers’ details and intellectual assets of the companies vulnerable in the presence of increasing security threats from hackers and intruders. Internet frauds related to the banking sector have become major concerns for customers around the world. Some of the most common online banking frauds have been discussed in the paper, along with the discussion of few real life instances of such crimes. 2. Internet Banking Internet banking offers a wide range of activities like balance inquiries, transfer of accounts etc. The acquisition and transfer of customer details and information on the internet makes the whole process vulnerable, along with the presence of internet scams that aim to steal the information of customers. Financial institutions have suffered great losses over the years by becoming victims of malicious activities of cyber criminals. Cicutti (2008) quoted the results of a research study by Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs); it concluded that instances of ‘cardholder not present’ are increasing around 37% after every year. The losses reached to an enormous amount of ?290m in 2007. These figures include fraudulent attempts via the internet, mail and phone. Few other figures have been reported by Financial Fraud Action UK in Sky News (2009); it pointed out that only first half of 2009 marked a 55% increase in the rate of internet banking frauds with the figur e of ?390m as compared to the figures for the year 2008. The alarming increment of internet banking crimes denote that the cyber criminals are getting more technology savvy who are adopting innovative technologies to overcome the security measures of the financial institutions to violate the privacy of the customers’ data. Internet banking has been widely accepted by customers due to its convenience. Spam Laws (2009) stated that around 45% of the 141 million grownups in US opt for online payment of their bills. Along with convenience, comes a huge price for the customers who prefer online banking. Spam Laws (2009) also provided the information that around 2 million Americans became victims of fraudulent actions in the year 2004, where customers were reported to suffer losses of around $1, 200 on average at every instance of fraud. After the analysis of the findings, it was concluded that the increasing number of fraudulent actions were known to have the source as online banki ng. 2.1 Types of Internet Frauds There are numerous types of internet banking frauds. Few of the most common ones have been discussed below: 2.1.1 Phishing/ Scam Emails The concept of phishing originates from two words; password and fishing. Zin andYunos (2005) explained that this technique is used to retrieve customer’s bank details by making the activity look like a regular procedure from his respective bank. Several types of information may be aimed to be extracted by the user, such as social security numbers, online banking credentials, credit card numbers etc. The sender might pose to be a bank officer who wants to update the customer’s data in the bank database. Recipients might reply to such emails with the understanding that it is a

Variable pay strategy and program for an online retailer Research Paper

Variable pay strategy and program for an online retailer - Research Paper Example Variable pay can at times be long termed (more than a year) while at times it can be short termed (less than a year). Incentives refer to pre determined standards or criteria used in award determination. Bonuses on the other hand are wards delivered to the people concerned at the end of a certain period. The period on the case of bonuses is determined by the subject judgment of the quality of the performance while a reward is warranted (Variable Pay and Performance Linked Incentives, 2010). Strategy An effective variable pay program is as result of a strategic variable pay strategy, this strategy acts as a guideline for a quality design and program administration. A strategic program has the following characteristics: the clearly fit in the organizational structure and are steers of the organizations success. For a strategy to contribute to the success any organization, it must be in line with the mission and vision of the organization concerned. The speed of a strategy does not brin g about and importance because most likely it may be speeding to the wrong direction. A quality and strategic program should target to meet the objectives of the organization by lying down the require plans which if properly and rightfully administered, it would take the firm to another level. The strategy of the program should be also sound enough to bring about sustainability of the firm putting in consideration all the core strengths of the organization. It is also critical for a strategy to be in a specific context. It must bring out feasibility where it suits with the culture of the organization and that of the human resource, this must consider the organizational environment and realities that exists. Integration must also prevail where the structure of the program suits in the structure of the specific organization including the human resource’s structure. The program must also be flexible enough to respond to appropriateness and changes within an organization (Variabl e Pay Plan Development, 2011). There are differences between other compensations and variable pay, this differences occur on the bases of benefits and base pay. Variable pay program does not fit in entitlement cultures, this is because it’s not career annuity where base pay increase and must be compensated trough earnings over the given period. In reference to financial perspective, variable pay is a variable cost but the benefits and base pay are naturally fixed. There are difficulties in administering variable pay, competitive measurements is on of these difficulties. Levels of variable pay vary dramatically unlike levels of base pays, this helps in transforming average of the prevailing market into a broad-range, other than a specific point. One of the major characteristic of these variable pays is that it can be combined with other components to evaluate the performance of different levels in the organization both long term and long term (Variable Pay and Performance Link ed Incentives, 2010). The most significant benefits associated with variable pay compared to other types of compensations it that cost related to planning can be combined with performance/revenues and therefore vary economically. In Alaska, there is an advantage of using this kind of system because when the world’s economy is open to large variation, it carries with itself competitive advantage because the situation disadvantages them

Assignment 5 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

5 - Assignment Example stomers with purchasing convenience and seamless access to the company’s portfolio is the main evidence of customer intimacy and support that FedEx offers to its customers. In addition, each of the FedEx\u2019s business segments has independent operations and strategies that enhance anticipation and customer support. In addition, FedEx has a supportive website (fedex.com) that demonstrates its product leadership. 2. What are FedEx’s four main business segments? Provide two examples of traceable fixed costs for each of FedEx’s four business segments. Provide two examples of common costs that are not traceable to the four business segments. FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight and FedEx Kinko\u2019s are the main business segments of the company (FedEx Form 10-K 2005, p. 3). On the other hand, the cost of maintaining the Memphis international airport facility and purchase of 557 airliners are examples of traceable cost for FedEx Express. Traceable costs for FedEx Ground includes cost of maintaining information and data centers located in Pittsburgh (FedEx Form 10-K 2005, p. 25) in addition the business segment caters for Daniel Sullivan’s (CEO) salary. Finally, traceable costs for FedEx Freight’s include cost of owning and maintaining 39,500 vehicles and trailers and their customs-critical headquarters at Ohio. A common example of not traceable to the four business segments would be PGA golf tournaments sponsored by the company. 6. Assume that the senior managers of FedEx Express and FedEx Ground each have an investment opportunity that would require $20 million of additional operating assets and that would increase operating income by $4 million. If FedEx evaluates all of its senior managers using ROI, would the managers of both segments pursue the investment opportunity? If FedEx evaluates all of its senior managers using residual income, would the managers of both segments pursue the investment opportunity? 4,000,000) = 1. From the previous

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE PAPER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE PAPER - Essay Example According to Cleary (143), some people who do not suffer from any mental illness hurt themselves and others; however, suffering from psychiatric conditions increases the likelihood of a person doing self-harm. Individuals with personality disorders of any kind are at high risk of hurting themselves; including dual personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. In addition, phobias to various common phenomena cause people to harm themselves in one way or the other, as is depression caused by many pressures of daily living. Schizophrenia reduces a person’s ability to distinguish between real and imagined things, thereby causing a person to harm self or others. In addition, schizophrenic patients tend to be suicidal especially if the patients are young and know what the disease will do to their lives. Final in the list of mental disorders is Munchausen Syndrome, though it results in self-harm to a lesser extent. Recent studies have shown that terminally ill patients ar e also at risk of committing self-harm or suicide in extreme cases, for instance, HIV/AIDS patients. Psychologically, self-harm is caused by any form of trauma including childhood abuse, bereavement, and abusive relationships. Autism may cause patients to harm themselves, while other factors in life in may also contribute, including poverty and unemployment. Lesch-Nyhan syndrome is the only genetic conditions that result in self-harm; however, genetics predisposes a person to conditions like stress and depression that may cause a patient to self-harm. Alcoholics are the most predisposed drug users to self-harm, accounting for over 60 percent of drug users who do so. Harming oneself due to drug influence may occur when a person is abusing the drugs, due to the addiction, or because of withdrawal symptoms resulting from attempting to stop the habit (Laye-Gindhu and

Global Decision Support Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Global Decision Support - Essay Example That DSS tools are effective in managerial decision making processes implies managers must improve the tools’ capacities to work efficiently to yield the right information structure (Antunes et al., 2007). Thus the generation, design, implementation, interpretation and implementation of DSS tools should be done efficiently and competently to solve decision-making problems. A DSS system should thus serve as a competitive advantage that helps an organization to tackle decision-making problems based on consistent information and information structure and win markets. Background Generally, a Decision Support System (DSS) is a compilation of amalgamated software and hardware applications (tools, techniques, and models) used by an organization as the benchmark of decision making process. Since decision making requires the analysis of data, a DSS should be data-driven. The concepts of Business Intelligence (BI), Organizational Intelligence (OI), and Competitive Intelligence (CI), whi ch encompass the processes, methodologies, and reporting tools central to decision support systems to report, monitor, and analyze data are also important in DSS and decision making (Antunes et al., 2007). This paper reviews literatures on the benefits and buy-in of global DSS, the processes of implementing global DSS, the ethical issues related to global DSS, and the possible ways by which global DSS may increase global partners. A global Decision Support System (GDSS) is a computer-based interactive system used by teams from different organizations, countries or regions to make decisions, solve problems, and make choices. Specifically, global DSS aims to support groups in the analysis of problem situations and in the performance of collective decision-making tasks. From its name global DSS is quite descriptive and is a mixture of systems that uses intricate communications infrastructures and quantitative models to support decision-making processes. Literature Review As a consequen ce of increased globalization and heightened competition in the business world, entrepreneurs have resorted to using the latest technologies to make vital business decisions (Lynch, 1994). Similarly, a lot of literary work has focused on decision making and its various techniques and tools such as DSS. According to most authors, there are numerous aspects of DSS that organizations and managers should consider when venturing into global DSS. Global DSS benefits, implementation, and ethical issues are among the most extensively covered aspects of DSS in literatures. Businesses enjoy numerous benefits by implementing global DSS. For instance, for quite a long time, organizations have struggled to find an electronic commercial application that would allow them to jointly decode and interpret information to allow them to make use of these decision making tools in the accompaniment of other organizations or business partners (Lynch, 1994). The first among the many benefits of global DSS i s that it allows organizations to orient their resources towards providing managers with all the required information for strategic decision making. Global DSS offers organizations several other capabilities, including support for decision-making processes in ill-structured situations that lack full computerization and requires computer-based assistance for voluminous data accessibility and processing (Lynch, 1994). Global DSS also helps in the rapid acquisition of quantity and quality results for reaching decision by supporting the various stages of

Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Economics - Essay Example Global capitalism has been tried before in the world and it has failed. However, when the reforms proposed by the West prove ineffective, it tends to blame the East for its innate weaknesses like insufficient entrepreneurial skills. The matter of the fact is the entrepreneurial skills of the Third World and the ex-communist countries are quite similar to those of their Western counterparts. If the people in the third world do not suffer from certain fundamental deficiency in cultural or genetic heritage, then what could be the reason behind the fact that the capitalism is successful only in the West? An answer to this puzzling question is the failure of the Third World and the ex-communist countries to produce capital. The poor people in the developing world are not wanting in the assets that make capital successful. They in fact hold these assets in defective form: the ownership rights are not fully documented, the terms of the businesses are not defined and the industries are not l ocated at suitable places the cumulative result of which is that these assets cannot be turned into capital. In the West, the property is fully documented which can be used as a capital for producing surplus value in various forms such as mortgage and securities. Because of the absence of this representational process, the third world countries are undercapitalized. The third world despite assimilating a lot of western cultural traits has failed to follow the example of the West in this crucial area of producing sufficient capital. This is the mystery of capital. The fundamental difference between the western nations and the Third World and the ex-communist countries is that only the former have the knowledge of converting capital from places which the other countries cannot. This absence of the conversion process in the Third World is compounded by the failure on the part of the West to understand the origin of the capital. This book is an effort to trace the history of capital and learn right lessons from it to help poor countries overcome their problems which have nothing to do with deficiencies in culture and genetic heritage. This fact has been made clear by the fact that the regions which are culturally as diverse as Russia and Latin America share the same problems because of building capitalism without capital. The Third World today faces the same challenges such as lack of enforcement of property rights, poor law and order situation and biased business and trade regulations which were faced by US in its early history and other Western countries only a couple of centuries before. There are at least five questions which need to be answered to understand why the role of capital despite being the most important component of Western development is not adequately understood: first, how much saving has been done by the poorest sectors of society in the west; second, what is the nature of capital and what is its role in the creation of wealth; third, why have the governments not been able to put the â€Å"dead Capital† in the hands of the poor people to some profitable use; four, why have the lessons not been learnt from the history of successful capitalist countries and five, why the adoption of the Western legal system in the third world has not delivered. The Mystery of Missing Information In the Third World, the documentation of property

Global Decision Support Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Global Decision Support - Essay Example That DSS tools are effective in managerial decision making processes implies managers must improve the tools’ capacities to work efficiently to yield the right information structure (Antunes et al., 2007). Thus the generation, design, implementation, interpretation and implementation of DSS tools should be done efficiently and competently to solve decision-making problems. A DSS system should thus serve as a competitive advantage that helps an organization to tackle decision-making problems based on consistent information and information structure and win markets. Background Generally, a Decision Support System (DSS) is a compilation of amalgamated software and hardware applications (tools, techniques, and models) used by an organization as the benchmark of decision making process. Since decision making requires the analysis of data, a DSS should be data-driven. The concepts of Business Intelligence (BI), Organizational Intelligence (OI), and Competitive Intelligence (CI), whi ch encompass the processes, methodologies, and reporting tools central to decision support systems to report, monitor, and analyze data are also important in DSS and decision making (Antunes et al., 2007). This paper reviews literatures on the benefits and buy-in of global DSS, the processes of implementing global DSS, the ethical issues related to global DSS, and the possible ways by which global DSS may increase global partners. A global Decision Support System (GDSS) is a computer-based interactive system used by teams from different organizations, countries or regions to make decisions, solve problems, and make choices. Specifically, global DSS aims to support groups in the analysis of problem situations and in the performance of collective decision-making tasks. From its name global DSS is quite descriptive and is a mixture of systems that uses intricate communications infrastructures and quantitative models to support decision-making processes. Literature Review As a consequen ce of increased globalization and heightened competition in the business world, entrepreneurs have resorted to using the latest technologies to make vital business decisions (Lynch, 1994). Similarly, a lot of literary work has focused on decision making and its various techniques and tools such as DSS. According to most authors, there are numerous aspects of DSS that organizations and managers should consider when venturing into global DSS. Global DSS benefits, implementation, and ethical issues are among the most extensively covered aspects of DSS in literatures. Businesses enjoy numerous benefits by implementing global DSS. For instance, for quite a long time, organizations have struggled to find an electronic commercial application that would allow them to jointly decode and interpret information to allow them to make use of these decision making tools in the accompaniment of other organizations or business partners (Lynch, 1994). The first among the many benefits of global DSS i s that it allows organizations to orient their resources towards providing managers with all the required information for strategic decision making. Global DSS offers organizations several other capabilities, including support for decision-making processes in ill-structured situations that lack full computerization and requires computer-based assistance for voluminous data accessibility and processing (Lynch, 1994). Global DSS also helps in the rapid acquisition of quantity and quality results for reaching decision by supporting the various stages of