The Originate-to-distribute (OTD) model allows banks to sell or securitize loans rather than holding them until maturity. We investigate the incentives for using OTD lending and its impact on credit supply and bank risk taking behavior based on their involvements in the OTD model and bank size. Banks involved into OTD lending have more OTD loans and riskier mortgage portfolios. Funding cost reduction and liquidity needs are more important for high-OTD banks and small banks and regulatory capital arbitrage can only be found in small banks. Moreover, we find that OTD lending increase credit supply, but it has adverse effect on bank risk, especially for small banks involved in the model.

This empirical study investigates the factors influencing Nigerians’ trust and adoption of mobile banking technology; using an integrative model. Research was conducted using a questionnaire developed and distributed in Nigeria. Out of 2256 returned questionnaires, 1725 were deemed to have been completed and hence usable. The data was analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and the results showed that confidentiality, integrity, authentication, access control, best business practices and non-repudiation significantly influenced technology trust with availability showing unsatisfactory values for consideration. In addition, technology trust showed a direct significant influence on perceived ease of use and usefulness. Technology trust also showed an indirect influence on intention to use through its impact on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Also, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness showed significant influence on consumer’s intention to adopt the technology. As a result of increased understanding of customer trust and adoption trends in Nigeria, these findings have important theoretical implications for researchers with interests in technology acceptance trends and the role of external factors, such as trust, in user adoption of technology. Such implications include the provision of empirical data, which highlights the role technology trust, demographic segmentations, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness play in mobile banking adoption in Nigeria. In addition, the successful completion of this study provides justification for the use of this research’s model as a suitable framework for investigating user adoption of technology.

This thesis is concerned with different sources of risk occurring in financial markets. We follow a bottom-up approach by carrying out an analysis from the perspective of a single investor to the whole banking system. We first consider an investor who faces parameter uncertainty in a continuous-time financial market. We model the investor’s preference by a power utility function leading to constant relative risk aversion. We show that the loss in expected utility is large when using a simple plug-in strategy for unknown parameters. We also provide theoretical results that show the tradeoff between holding a well-diversified portfolio and a portfolio that is robust against estimation errors. To reduce the effect of estimation, we constrain the weights of the risky assets with a norm leading to a sparse portfolio. We provide analytical results that show how the sparsity of the constrained portfolio depends on the coefficient of relative risk aversion. Based on a simulation study, we demonstrate the existence and the uniqueness of an optimal bound on the norm for each level of relative risk aversion. Next, we consider the interbank lending market as a network in which the nodes represent banks and the directed edges represent interbank liabilities. The interbank network is characterised by the matrix of liabilities whose entries are not directly observable, as bank balance sheets provide only total exposures to the interbank market. Using a Bayesian approach, we assume that each entry follows a Gamma distributed prior. We then construct a Gibbs sampler of the conditional joint distribution of interbank liabilities given total interbank liabilities and total interbank assets. We illustrate our methodology with a stress test on two networks of eleven and seventysix banks. We identify under which circumstances the choice of the prior influences the stability and the structure of the network.

This thesis analyses the competitive aspects of bank merger transactions under the law of the United Kingdom ('UK') and the United States ('US'), including the applicable law of the European Union ('EU'). This thesis, also, covers bank mergers and competition in view of the financial crisis 2007-08 that is known as the Global Financial Crisis ('GFC'). The analysis under UK and EU law focuses on competition issues in the banking and financial sector, notwithstanding that competition laws in these jurisdictions apply broadly to all sectors of the economy. The US law analysis is based on competition law from federal antitrust and bank regulatory authorities, case law, as well as consumer protection regulation. This thesis establishes a comparative framework for understanding the competition provisions, examination methods of mergers, administrative proceedings, and case law development among the UK law, applicable EU cases, and US agencies and courts. It highlights potential improvements in the analysis of banking competition and the financial sector as whole. The ultimate goal of any proposed improvement should be to make banks and other financial institutions provide more efficient services and less costly products to consumers, while reducing systemic risk and preserving the soundness and safety of the financial system. The GFC led UK and US policy makers to introduce a number of laws and regulations aimed at addressing excessive bank risk taking and improving financial regulatory enforcement. The increasing interconnection between competition law and bank regulation means that the competition and banking regulators are well positioned to play an active and wide-ranging role. The actions taken by the UK, the US as well as other national and international bodies, upon the occurrence of the GFC, were arguably necessary and perfectly justifiable on regulatory and financial stability grounds. The GFC revealed a number of significant regulatory and central bank failures, and especially in terms of defective regulation, supervision, resolution, support and macro prudential oversight. A substantial amount of work has been undertaken to correct all of these. It is arguable that sufficient action has been taken to remove the worst threats that arise with 'too-big-to-fail'. This paper takes a comparative approach and examines the applicability of competition laws, policies, and methods in bank mergers in the UK and the US. It, also, discusses how to improve these laws, polices and methods to make them more efficient and better equipped to preserve and enhance competition in banking and financial system.

The International Monetary Fund has often been accused of adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to the resolution of financial crises. However, its programs present substantial differences in terms of their relative size and conditionality among other characteristics. This dissertation examines the causes and consequences of this variation through the lenses of two cases in which the contrast between the Fund´s interventions was particularly marked: Argentina and Uruguay during the period that surrounds the financial crash of 2001-02. The first part of this study analyses the determinants of these multilateral interventions through an adaptation of Robert Puntam´s two level games, exploring the way in which national politics interacted with international priorities to produce distinct outcomes in Argentina and Uruguay. The two experiences confirm that domestic ratification processes impose significant constraints on the negotiation of IMF programs, potentially conferring localized bargaining advantages to borrowing governments. Beyond a certain point, however, an intensification of these ratification constraints can result in a suspension of the Fund´s support, after which borrowers´ bargaining position weakens dramatically. That this point of rupture was reached in Argentina but not in Uruguay was due primarily to the different propensity to cooperate exhibited by political actors in these two countries, itself the product of certain institutional conditions such as the strength of their systems of checks and balances or a varying distribution of veto power. In turn, the second part of this thesis applies a hypothetical counterfactual approach to assess the consequences of the multilateral decisions adopted during the 2001-02 crisis in the Southern Cone. Although the contrast between the suspension of the Argentine program in December 2001 and the Uruguayan bailout of August 2002 had surprisingly modest macroeconomic consequences, its impact on politics and institutions was profound both in the short and in the medium-term. As a result of these findings, this dissertation argues that a better understanding of the implications of multilateral crisis resolution loans on the political economy of the countries concerned is still needed.

Co-production is a term that has gained increased attention as governments seek out new ways for organising and delivering public services which involve citizens. One way of developing co-production is time banking, a form of community currency that has developed in the UK since the 1990s and is gaining increased policy attention with Governments in England and Wales. This research examines the relationship between time banking and co-production within health care. The starting point of the study is two-fold. First there is an interest in the claimed health benefits of time banking and its potential for service delivery. To explore these issues the research specifically examines the mechanisms which generate social capital and social networks through time bank participation to offer a more nuanced analysis of the health outcomes currently found in the literature. Building on this, action research was carried out with health service providers in the South Wales Valleys to examine the applicability of time banking, and therefore co-production to local service delivery. Second, the analysis of these health care interventions seeks to reposition time bank theory. Drawing on the social theory of time the analysis explores how time banking is co-opted into government programmes despite its radical political potential which offers an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism. Consequently the original contribution of this research is the repositioning of current time bank theory to offer a more nuanced understanding of the possible impacts upon health through time banking and a theoretical framework from which to articulate political goals with greater clarity.

Microfinance has gained prominence as a policy option for addressing poverty. Although microfinance has a long history, its growing appeal is usually associated with the attention given to the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, which pioneered group-based lending to poor women. Following the ‘successes of Grameen and the promotion of ‘cloned’ institutions, advocacy for microfinance has focussed primarily on microcredit. Consequently, microfinance as savings, insurance, and other forms of financial intermediation received far less attention. It was believed that microcredit was a more reliable and faster means to achieve poverty reduction, especially through supporting the entrepreneurialism of the poor. Microcredit then became a mantra of the microfinance sector, increasingly identified as its ‘raison d’être’ and the justification for the investment of billions for dollars. This thesis focuses on the relationship between microfinance and poverty. It puts savings at the centre of the research through an analysis of a savings-led financial services co-operative known as the ‘Village Banks’ in South Africa. The research considers the asserted link between microfinance and poverty from both a theoretical and empirical interrogation. It questions the limited engagement that the microfinance literature has had with the various theories on poverty and attempts to formulate a more nuanced understanding of relations between the two. The empirical contribution is a mixed method of qualitative analysis, in the form of focus groups held in four different Village Bank communities, and quantitative analysis from an original panel of households in one community. The thesis argues that a savings-led model of microfinance has the ability to contribute to the challenges of poverty reduction more than is currently acknowledged. It will also argue that, when provided with the necessary support, member-owned financial institutions, such as the Village Banks, offer a potential solution to addressing the inherent challenges of providing low-cost banking services in rural areas.

This thesis explores the practice of intercessory wasta; the strong family and tribal-based connections secured in networks in the Arab world. In doing so the social capital lens, particularly bonding and bridging social capital, is adopted as the main lens to investigate HRM, recruitment and selection, and line managers’ perceptions of the impact of wasta on employment selection in Jordan. Identity research, namely social identity theory, social categorisation theory and role identity theory, is used to extend on and critique social capital theory as the main theoretical lens in exploring wasta. Often the use of wasta in employee selection is related to favouritism and nepotism and the many negative outcomes of not adhering to merit-based selection. The researcher adopts a qualitative and interpretivist approach in conducting and analysing seventeen in-depth interviews in fourteen case study banks operating in Jordan. By being the first research to explore the impact of wasta on employee selection in banks operating in Jordan using the social capital as the main theoretical lens, particularly bonding and bridging social capital, this thesis contributes to knowledge in respect of social capital and wasta. It was found that, contrary to the general premise that social capital is beneficial for both job seekers and organisations when utilised in employee selection, wasta has both positive and negative outcomes depending on the way the intermediary is used. On the one hand wasta can be used by calling on a powerful intermediary who can help grant individuals unfair access to employment that is beyond their qualifications, skills, knowledge and abilities. Wasta can also be used as part of an exchange process where individuals can be employed in exchange for a present or future benefit bestowed on the organisation or the decision maker by the intermediary. Organisational context is relevant in this respect however. In banking, not all roles are open to wasta. Where the possible negative impact on the organisation poses too great a risk decision makers feel able to resist even strong wasta. Importantly the findings also highlight some positive uses of wasta. These emerged mainly in the context of wasta as a method to transfer information over structural holes between the organisation and the job seeker.

La finance islamique a enregistré une croissance à deux chiffres en termes de volume et d’expansion malgré un contexte marqué par la crise mondiale de 2008, d’où l’intérêt qu’elle suscite. Cette industrie a réalisé cette croissance sur un modèle de financement qui respecte des principes éthiques, ces derniers ont été à l’origine de sa résilience et de sa pérennité pendant la crise, ils ont constitué un socle étanche vis-à-vis des risques financiers conventionnels.Cependant, la finance islamique n’est pas une industrie sans risques. Tel est l’objet de la présente thèse à travers la présentation des risques inhérents à l’activité financière islamique notamment les risques communs que l’on retrouve également dans la finance conventionnelle et les risques spécifiques liés à la structure du bilan des institutions financières islamiques. Grâce à l'analyse des contrats de la finance islamique et des risques associés, cette thèse met en évidence les faiblesses de la finance islamique.Cette faiblesse est confirmée à travers les révélations apportées par cette thèse sur l’origine des résultats des banques islamiques en Malaisie. Un exemple concret prouve que les résultats positifs réalisés par les banques entre 2001 et 2011 seraient liés à la combinaison de deux facteurs à savoir la structure du bilan (majoritairement composé au niveau de l’actif de financement accordé à marges fixes et au niveau du passif de dettes à marges variables) et la tendance à la baisse des taux d’intérêt. Ainsi, dans un environnement de taux d'intérêt élevé, comme par exemple lors de la crise financière asiatique de 1997, ces banques devraient enregistrer une baisse de leurs résultats. / Islamic finance has been registering double-digit growth in volume and scope, even in the face of the 2008 worldwide crisis, attracting significant attention. This industry has achieved this growth on a model of finance that complies with ethical principles which constituted its strength during the crisis and which allow them to avoid conventional finance risks.However, the unique features of Islamic finance do not insulate it from risk. The discussions in this thesis will focus on the types of risks Islamic financial institutions face in common with conventional financial institutions and also the new and unique risks that Islamic financial institutions face as a result of their unique asset and liability structures. Through the analysis of Islamic finance contracts and inherent risks, this thesis highlights the weakness of Islamic finance.In this thesis, we also analyzed the gains made by Islamic banks in Malaysia from 2001 to 2011 and we demonstrated that this gain is due to the combination of two parameters inter alia the structure of balance sheet (which includes predominantly fixed rate financing in the asset side and variable rate resources in the liability side) and the low interest-rate environment. Indeed, in high interest-rate environment, like in the Asian financing crisis in 1997, these banks could record a drop in its results.

Established service firms acknowledge that successful radical innovations are critical to create substantial customer value by satisfying unmet needs, enhance long-term growth and the flows of idiosyncratic asset stocks that create sustainable competitive advantage. Despite these invaluable advantages, the failure rate of these costly and complex innovation initiatives is high and incremental innovation and imitation behaviour dominates most service industries, especially the financial service industry. Given the importance of services and the low performance records of these projects, it was expected that radical service innovation would be considered as a high research priority. Unfortunately, it was not the case. The central objective of the current research project is to develop a multi-layer (dynamic or evolutionary) conceptual framework for the key capabilities and competences of radical innovation success in the context of the Egyptian banking sector. An analytical, multi-layer conceptual framework was proposed before approaching the empirical study to guide the process of data collection and analysis. This conceptual framework elaborated on the major principles of the competence-based view of the firm. A (retrospective) longitudinal, multi-method, qualitative case study research was designed. Three data collection techniques were used: interviews; documents, and observations. A common framework of data analysis was employed: process narrative strategy; and synthetic strategy. The findings show that key to the success of radical service innovation is a complex set of capabilities and competences. These are: entrepreneurial (resource building) capability, theoretical (second-order) construct; core radical innovation competence, superordinate (third-order) construct; incubation capability, theoretical (third-order) construct; and acceleration capability, theoretical (third order) construct. Moreover, the success/performance of radical innovation is assessed through four categories of constructs. The first category is temporary competitive advantage (TCA), which may be: effectiveness advantage; or efficiency advantage. The second category is sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The third category is a set of imitation barriers. The fourth category is the superior long-term financial performance. The findings show that the entrepreneurial (resource building) capability is causally linked to the core radical innovation competence, which is causally linked to both the incubation and acceleration capabilities. The findings also show that the incubation capability is causally linked to acceleration capability. The acceleration capability, on the other hand, is causally linked to TCA. The findings also show that the TCA-SCA relationship is contingent, and moderated by imitation barriers. Moreover, the SCA is causally linked to the superior long-term financial performance. Finally, the superior long-term financial performance is causally linked to core radical innovation competence. The current research project contributes to several streams of the literature in four main ways. First, it develops a process model for a radical service innovation project, from its inception to introduction. This model is developed based on a radical innovation at the national level: the National Program for Vehicle Replacement (NPVR), which is seen as success story in a developing country. Several national and international banks have played key roles in the incubation and acceleration phases of this program. Second, it delivers a set of original theoretical constructs (manifested by a consistent and comprehensive set of 72 first-order latent factors), and the propositions linking these theoretical constructs. Third, it identifies 13 criticisms for one of the most widely adopted theory within the (entrepreneurship, innovation, and strategic management) literature, the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm. Finally, it reinforces one of the least employed research methodologies, longitudinal qualitative research based on process data.