Magister Commercii - MCom / This study investigates the financial, marketing as well as technological feasibility of turning the current University of Western Cape (UWC) Student ID Card into a more featured debit card called the "Hoop Kaarf'. This debit card will offer the functionality of access to secure UWC areas, the purchase and use of photocopying credits, the purchase of printing credits, taking out library books; and identification, as the old student card does. It will also have the added functionality of replacing cash when paying for vending machines, cafés, takeaways, shops, supermarkets and withdrawing money from ATMs, at UWC, within South Africa and outside the country.

This master thesis "Payment cards in the Czech republic" deals with payment cards, which are currently the most widely used payment instrument. Theoretical part is focused on the formation and development of the first ancestors of payment cards, various kinds of payment cards, there is historical development, basic characteristic, division, possibilities of their current use and future of payment cards. Also there are introduced different types of the payment cards according to different criteria, according to their mode of operation and safety. In the first part practical part of the work is an analysis of the current situation and developments in the payment cards market in the Czech Republic. Subsequently, there is analysis of the payment cards, current accounts and related services at selected bank in the Czech republic mBank S.A., Fio banka a.s., Equabank a.s., Zuno bank a.s. and Air bank a.s. When the objective of the thesis is to find out whether these banks target the same segments of clients. There is a comparation of payment card payment from the perspective of the monthly cost of using payment card from four basic segments of one bank, while there is a comparison of services related to payment card and in the end for every client is chosen the best alternative of payment card and the current account from the perspective of the average monthly cost.

This doctoral thesis represents an investigation into financial fraud in online banking and card payment systems in the UK and China, involving network security, online financial transactions, internet fraud, card payment systems and individuals' perception of and behaviours towards electronic environments. In contrast to previous studies, the research questions were tackled by survey questionnaires both in the UK and China, with a particular interest in fraud and attempted fraud. The main findings from the UK respondents were that those with higher IT skill and younger respondents are more likely to be defrauded on the internet. Certain types of online activities are associated with higher risks of fraud, these being internet banking; online shopping and media downloading. Furthermore, four predictors (internet banking, online education services, downloading media and length of debit card usage) provided significant effects in the logistic regression model to explain fraud occurrence in the UK. Based on the data collected in China, younger respondents were more likely to have higher general IT skill and higher educational qualifications. However, online shopping was the only online activity which was significantly correlated to fraud occurrence. Finally, two predictors (frequency of usage of online shopping and number of debit cards) were selected in the logistic regression model to explain fraud occurrence in China.

Contexte et objectifs. Depuis plusieurs années, la criminalité économique génère des coûts économiques et sociaux importants. Plusieurs acteurs, dont les entreprises privées, se sont mobilisés pour lutter contre ce phénomène. La fraude par carte de débit est un crime économique en expansion contre lequel plusieurs organisations ont entrepris des actions. L’objectif de ce mémoire est d’améliorer les connaissances sur les effets des mesures de prévention situationnelle appliquées dans les succursales d’un commerce de détail et leur impact sur le processus décisionnel des délinquants impliquées dans le clonage de cartes de débit. Méthodologie. Les effets des mesures de prévention mises en place sont évalués à l’aide d’analyses de séries chronologiques interrompues. En complément des analyses statistiques, des entrevues et une analyse documentaire sont effectuées. Les entrevues sont réalisées avec des enquêteurs du service de sécurité de l’entreprise de commerce de détail. L’analyse documentaire est basée sur les rapports d’événement ouverts lors des fraudes par carte de débit. Résultats. Les mesures de prévention ont produit différents effets. Selon la mesure, il fut possible de constater soit une hausse ou une baisse dans le nombre de délits commis. Certaines mesures ont, en outre, provoqué un déplacement spatial, un déplacement dans le choix de la cible, un déplacement dans le type de crime commis et, finalement, un déplacement tactique. Conclusion. Les résultats suggèrent que les mesures de prévention adoptées ont empêché la réalisation des délits associés à la fraude par carte de débit. Par contre, la présence de plusieurs formes de déplacement indique que les fraudeurs se sont adaptés aux mesures de prévention. Afin de documenter adéquatement cette forme de crime et les déplacements générés, d’autres études s’avèrent nécessaires. / Context and objectives. Each year, economic crimes generate important economic and social losses. Many enterprises, including private enterprises, collaborated and introduced initiatives in order to combat this criminality. Fraud using automated payment cards is a crime in full expansion against which many organizations have taken actions. The objective of this dissertation is, on one hand, to improve the knowledge on the impact of preventive measures implemented in the branches of a retailer and, on the other hand, to estimate their impact on the criminal decision-making process. Methodology. The effect of preventive measures is assessed through interrupted time series analysis. In addition, members the retailer security staff were interviewed and a review of event reports associated with debit card fraud was performed. Results. The preventive measures were associated to various results. Depending on the preventive measure, one can observe either an increase or a decrease in the number of crimes performed. It is also observed that some measures have resulted in tactical and spatial displacements. Some offenders have also started to commit other types of crimes. Conclusion. The results suggest that the preventive measures implemented had a significant preventive effect on debit card crimes. However, the presence of many types of displacement shows that the offenders have adjusted to those preventive measures. In order to properly document this type of crime and associated displacements, additional studies are necessary.

This diploma thesis is covering topics of customer's loyalty, loyalty programs in banking and mainly topic is loyalty programs of payment cards in banking industry. First theoretical parts is guiding us though concept of customer's loyalty in banking industry and is describing specifics of this loyalty compared to loyalty to sales businesses. Further, this thesis is trying to show opportunities to be used to support customer's loyalty in bank with participation of credit and debit cards. In this sense, these payment cards are those that enable client's entry into the loyalty program and into the advantages that is loyalty program offering. Further, this thesis is describing interesting concept of loyalty program that is closely coupled with business partners that give opportunities to make the program very variable and interesting for customers. Practical part of this thesis is describing basis for technologies to be used while deploying the loyalty program and is discussing two main technical concepts regarding loyalty system integration with current bank information systems. One of those is further discussed and described from the point of view technical realization in common data warehouse systems. Main contribution of this work is preview of approaches to payment card loyalty programs and also preview of possibilities in way the loyalty program can be integrated with data warehouse currently deployed in the bank.

Contexte et objectifs. Depuis plusieurs années, la criminalité économique génère des coûts économiques et sociaux importants. Plusieurs acteurs, dont les entreprises privées, se sont mobilisés pour lutter contre ce phénomène. La fraude par carte de débit est un crime économique en expansion contre lequel plusieurs organisations ont entrepris des actions. L’objectif de ce mémoire est d’améliorer les connaissances sur les effets des mesures de prévention situationnelle appliquées dans les succursales d’un commerce de détail et leur impact sur le processus décisionnel des délinquants impliquées dans le clonage de cartes de débit. Méthodologie. Les effets des mesures de prévention mises en place sont évalués à l’aide d’analyses de séries chronologiques interrompues. En complément des analyses statistiques, des entrevues et une analyse documentaire sont effectuées. Les entrevues sont réalisées avec des enquêteurs du service de sécurité de l’entreprise de commerce de détail. L’analyse documentaire est basée sur les rapports d’événement ouverts lors des fraudes par carte de débit. Résultats. Les mesures de prévention ont produit différents effets. Selon la mesure, il fut possible de constater soit une hausse ou une baisse dans le nombre de délits commis. Certaines mesures ont, en outre, provoqué un déplacement spatial, un déplacement dans le choix de la cible, un déplacement dans le type de crime commis et, finalement, un déplacement tactique. Conclusion. Les résultats suggèrent que les mesures de prévention adoptées ont empêché la réalisation des délits associés à la fraude par carte de débit. Par contre, la présence de plusieurs formes de déplacement indique que les fraudeurs se sont adaptés aux mesures de prévention. Afin de documenter adéquatement cette forme de crime et les déplacements générés, d’autres études s’avèrent nécessaires. / Context and objectives. Each year, economic crimes generate important economic and social losses. Many enterprises, including private enterprises, collaborated and introduced initiatives in order to combat this criminality. Fraud using automated payment cards is a crime in full expansion against which many organizations have taken actions. The objective of this dissertation is, on one hand, to improve the knowledge on the impact of preventive measures implemented in the branches of a retailer and, on the other hand, to estimate their impact on the criminal decision-making process. Methodology. The effect of preventive measures is assessed through interrupted time series analysis. In addition, members the retailer security staff were interviewed and a review of event reports associated with debit card fraud was performed. Results. The preventive measures were associated to various results. Depending on the preventive measure, one can observe either an increase or a decrease in the number of crimes performed. It is also observed that some measures have resulted in tactical and spatial displacements. Some offenders have also started to commit other types of crimes. Conclusion. The results suggest that the preventive measures implemented had a significant preventive effect on debit card crimes. However, the presence of many types of displacement shows that the offenders have adjusted to those preventive measures. In order to properly document this type of crime and associated displacements, additional studies are necessary.

The aim is to create worksheets that are dedicated to teaching selected topics of financial mathematics at the elementary school. The thesis is focused on financial products and is based on The Framework Educational Programs for Elementary Schools.

The objective of my thesis is to describe overall technological concept and organizational scheme od payment cards and outline trends and development in the near future. There has been a big effort for industry standardization (e.g. security standards). It describes also advantages and disadvantages of payment cards and means of authorization. The infomation mentioned here will be used in later part, in case studies. My 3-years working experience as a project manager at Wincor Nixdorf helped to further investigate these scenarios. This company is one of the market leaders and key players in banking and retail industry. Since the cost related issues are very importnant (especially in the time of crisis), I analysed and compared several scenarios of payment system installation in retail.