Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of South Carolina, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-195).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1988. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 165-175).

The study is a case study and it investigates the factors that determine the performance of retail banks in South Africa, and follows a case study approach in which Ubank is the focus. The purpose is to rank the identified factors in their order of importance for management's focus on improving the bank's performance. Performance is examined in terms of the bank's profitability and growth. This research utilizes secondary data analysis. The quantitative method is used by critically analysing the financial statements of Ubank, as well as the South African economic conditions. The ANOVA test is used as a tool of analysing the relationship between performance and identified factors, and for testing the significance of the identified factors. The study has found that the bank specific characteristics such as the bank size, return on average assets, market structure, capitalization, corporate governance, information technology, efficiency, credit risk and non-performing loans, are the factors that are relevant in the performance of banks. The macroeconomic factors that impact on the performance of banks are inflation, gross domestic product of the country as well as the banking regulations. The most significant factors were monthly average assets, cost inefficiency and the capital strength was insignificant in the study. The study concluded that poor performance of Ubank results from the imbalance on the focus on identified factors. It further showed that the poor management of the bank's credit system, decreasing market share and poor positioning also contribute to its performance results compared to its competitors. The recommendation to management was to increase the product offering of the bank through the development of products and services that meet the customer's expectations. The benchmarking of its technology with the leaders in the banking sector and the development of value adding marketing and business development strategies were recommended. Lastly, the compliance to the banking regulations. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

The objective of this study was to determine the technological readiness of senior citizen bank customers and their banking technology adoption behaviours. In particular, the purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between technology readiness and age seniority as a moderator. A quantitative research methodology was adopted for this exploratory research study, where a survey was administered with a population of 70 senior citizen bank customers residing in old age centres in Gauteng and North-West provinces. A small proportion of the study's respondents comprised or senior citizen bank customers resident in private homes in Mafikeng, North West. The findings of the study revealed that senior citizen bank customers of the South African banks who have access to technology based banking services and products are ready for banking technologies. The study also revealed that senior citizen bank customers currently only have access to, and use of, basic banking technology services and products that include a bank account, landline telephone banking and ATMs. ln addition, the study found that senior citizen bank customers of the South African Banks that have access to technology based banking services and products have higher desirability to learn more about technology banking products and services, are concerned about the safety of banking technologies which affect their level of trust on them. Further, the study found that this segment of bank customers does not have adequate access to information on new banking technology innovations that is tailored to their unique traits prompting a need for the marketing efforts of the banks to target segment of bank clients with customised marketing strategies. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2011

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The much-documented evidence of long-run underperformance following seasoned equity offerings is biased towards public offers and has been attributed mainly to overvaluation exploitation, due to information asymmetry between firm managers and prospective investors. This thesis investigates the long-run performance of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) via rights issues. Because the new shares in a rights issue are offered pro rata to the existing shareholders, overvaluation exploitation is hardly a plausible explanation for their subsequent performance. Consequently, rather than testing the overvaluation exploitation, or other suggested hypotheses, the thesis focuses on a variety of issue and issuing firm characteristics, including ownership structures, as possible explanations of post-issue performance. The thesis uses 818 independent equity rights issues conducted on the London Stock Exchange during the period 1986-1995. The buy-and-hold abnormal returns (BHARs) model is employed. For each issuer, returns on a control (nonissuing) firm conservatively chosen by size, size and industry, and size and market-to-book ratios, are used to proxy for expected returns. Both parametric and nonparametric tests are used to assess the significance of the abnormal returns. The average BHARs are then segmented into categories according to issue characteristics, firm characteristics, and ownership structure, and compared across the sample segments. Consistent with the SEO underperformance literature, investments in the shares of firms making rights issues underperform all benchmarks, over all horizons considered. The underperformance is not significantly different across firm size, market-to-book ratio, issue size quintiles, or across different uses of issue proceeds. It is more severe for firms issuing during periods of high issue activities, for younger firms and for firms that had high prior issue frequency. The underperformance is prevalent in many industry sectors. However, it is stronger in the "engineering" sector but none is found in the "mining" and "electronic and electricals" sectors. Surprisingly, the underperformance disappears in the later years of the sample period. The ownership structures of issuers changed significantly following the rights issues but the impact of these changes on the BHARs depends on the pre-offering levels of ownership. The results suggests that the underperformance phenomenon is neither a market nor offer-method specific. Also within the BHARs framework, the choice of benchmarks makes no difference. Having controlled for size, industry, and market-to-book ratios, the underperformance can still be explained partly by some of the other issue and firm characteristics. Moreover, while the postoffering ownership structure has a weak explanatory power, its changes around the offering potentially explain part of the underperformance when pre-offering ownership levels are taken into account.

This study begins with a generel review of the developments of international law and relations especially during this century and then continues to consider these developments within the specific contexts of permanent sovereignty over natural resrouces and bilateral investment treaties from which it is concluded that there have been many changes in the context in which foreign investment is made as well as the substantive rules governing it. However, despite the changes in attitude and the developments. there seems to be no specific and detailed set of rules universally accepted to be governing foreign investment especially in the area of compensation which is the core of the matter. Having considered this general background, the study turns to the contribution of one of the most unique experiences in the history of arbitration i. e. the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. After studying the general factual and legal background of the creation of the Tribunal and the examination of the instruments upon which the Tribunal's jurisdiction and structure are based, the thesis examines the practice of the Tribunal with regard to both expropriation and compensation. Attempt has been made to examine these issues from almost every relevant aspect. The conclusion reached in the final analysis of this part is that despite the consistency of the Tribunal's practice with regard to some general issues, there has not been much coherence when it comes to more specific and concrete issues such as the method of valuation and some aspects of expropriation and compensation. The final conclusion of the study is that there is still a long way to go before establishing a universal, specific and detailed set of rules governing foreign investment although the bilateral approach can be, and in fact is, considered as a safe interim measure of protection as far as the capital exporting countries are concerned. It also questions the viability and wisdom of adopting the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal experience as a pattern for resolving future investment disputes in light of the extraordinary background of its creation and controversies as to the precedential value of some of its decisions.

The main purpose of the thesis is to investigate one possible reason for the poor performance of Development Finance Institutions, and consequently to identify one possible way in which future performance might be improved. Financial Institutions can choose from two main investment instruments: loan and equity. Most DFIs have chosen to use loans almost exclusively. However, equity funding has a number of potential advantages over loans. One such advantage is equity's ability to compensate for risk, thus allowing a DFI to invest in higher risk projects which have the potential for higher returns. The research considers two DFIs in Malawi, both of which invest loan and equity finance. Five hypotheses are used to test whether equity's potential advantages have been of practical benefit. Each of these hypotheses is summarised below, followed by the result of the research. i Equity financed projects are more fully funded than are loan financed projects: not supported. ii The servicing cost of equity finance is more flexible, but the overall returns to equity are higher for the DFI: only the second part supported. iii Further funding is more likely to be provided in equity cases: only weakly supported. iv Some investments can only be financially justified by using equity: not supported. v More management help is given by the DFI in the case of equity investments: supported. A sixth hypothesis considers whether other factors, such as project appraisal methodology, external political pressure and internal operating procedures may have outweighed financial considerations such as the choice between equity and loan finance. (If so, then the potential advantages of equity would not have resulted in much practical benefit. ) There is evidence, although it is not conclusive, to support this hypothesis. The thesis concludes that the DFIs examined have hardly used the potential advantages of equity. The likeliest explanation for this appears to be that decisions on whether or not to use equity finance were dominated by the other factors identified in the sixth hypothesis.