Magister Commercii - MCom / The aim of this study is to determine the extent to which the UN/OSCAL (United Nations Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Development Countries) model of microfinance is being applied in the South African context, its scope for application and recommendations for implementation. The hypothesis is that, the better South African microfinance initiatives conform to the model, the more successful it will be in fulfilling the ultimate mission of microfinance which is to supply financial services to the poor by cutting the cost of outreach with beneficial effects on poverty.. / South Africa

Magister Legum - LLM / This study was on the anticipated impact of GATS on the financial services industry in Africa. The paper examined the possible positive and negative impact of the GATS agreement on the financial services industry in the African countries. The research focused on the banking sector and the insurance sector as the main financial sectors under investigation. / South Africa

The research for this study was guided by the question on whether the financial inclusion improvement strategies of the South African government adequately address the financial inclusion targets, as set out in the National Development Plan. This descriptive non-empirical study was conducted by means of a literature review. The secondary data used for the study were collected from a number of sources, namely: (i) the 2015 Brookings Financial and Digital Inclusion Project report; (ii) the 2014 Global Findex survey; (iii) the InterMedia surveys; (iv) Financial Access surveys; (v) various national FinScope surveys; and (iv) a number of working papers of the World Bank related to financial inclusion. The data revealed that South Africa, with its sophisticated financial sector, was early to adopt policies and initiatives to advance financial inclusion and the country has experienced a noticeable increase in financial inclusion from 61% in 2004 to 87% in 2015. South Africa is 3% away from its National Development Plan goal of 90% financial inclusion by 2030. This indicates that overall, the financial inclusion initiatives adopted by the South African government were successful.

The focus of this doctoral research is on developing an enhanced understanding of the nature and operational significance of fair values by studying the organisational systems and processes through which such values are produced. The external reporting of fair values in corporate financial statements has created significant controversy and debate, particularly during the global financial crisis with various accusations and competing defences as to whether or not such a form of accounting caused or exacerbated the crisis. Fair value accounting has been debated mainly from a relevance and reliability perspective, with much attention paid to the relative usefulness of fair value accounting to investors and claims and counter claims relating to the reliability and subjectivity of fair values compared to historical costing approaches. Investigation into implementation issues affecting reliability, however, has been little studied. While an emerging strand of the literature has pointed to the importance of recognising fair value accounting’s social constructed nature, relatively few research papers have examined the construction of fair values and the ways in which such values are shaped by social and organisational contextual influences. This research contributes to such an emerging literature through a detailed case study of the construction of fair values in an international financial services organisation. The primary focus of analysis is the work of the organisation’s central governing body in this area, namely its Fair Value Committee (FVC). The work of the FVC provides a rich empirical base from which to examine the key factors and perspectives influencing the organisation’s approach to fair values. In particular, through a detailed analysis of its formal minutes and supporting interviews with senior members of the FVC and other key organisational actors, the research documents and reflects on the nature and direction of change that the organisation experienced during the global financial crisis with respect to the operation of its fair value system. The main research findings in relation to the nature of the fair value system are: Firstly, the operation of an organisational fair value accounting system emerges not as a demonstrative example of objective, arm’s length pricing but as a social, relational process influenced by the organisational context. Secondly, in studying the way in which fair values are made sense of or constructed to be market consistent, patterns of sensemaking generally invoke a rational and prudent view of the market, which stimulates questioning as to whether fair value accounting is inherently pro-cyclical and exacerbates swings in the financial market. Thirdly, ‘fair value’ pricing should not be seen as being without a semblance of order and routine. Fourthly, the observed growing dependency of fair value accounting on valuation experts provides confirmation of the weakening jurisdictional authority of auditors and their monitoring role in overseeing fair value accounting. Finally, the research reveals clear evidence of the constitutive effects of fair value accounting on the organisation’s investment policy and permitted investments. As such, the acceptance of specialist models to construct fair values should not only be seen as being reflective of the particular organisational context but also serving in part to permit (and encourage) investments in esoteric financial instruments - a constitutive impact on the organisation's investment strategy and risk profile. The study encourages a greater empirical analysis of the operational construction, development and utilisation of fair values so as to advance knowledge and move the debate beyond polemical debates on the status of fair value accounting.

Work is focused on main problems of segmentation in practical life taking complicated financial services showing difficulties the market is facing. Aa main stream is author describing czech insurance market where segmentation has held a prime place within media and insurers interest. On the other hand is also showing banking sector where easy and simple marketing segmentation has been adopted. After analyzing the real situation, author is taking best practice advise from real world and also recommendation on what to do next from theory.

Thesis (MSc. (Agricultural Extension)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015. / Financial Services cooperatives are member based financial institutions formed, owned and controlled by members to provide financial services to their members. The concept of cooperative banking is new in South Africa and it is promoted to address financial services needs of the rural poor who would otherwise have no means of accessing financial services and use from formal banks. The study was undertaken to determine members perceptions towards financial services co-operatives in Lehurutshe, Lothlakane, Motswedi, Kraaipan and Disaneng FSC’s in the Ngaka Modiri Molemo District of North West Province. Population included 236 participants who were selected using non-probability purposive and convenience sampling method. Different data collection methods, namely, Focus group discussion, Product attribute ranking, Likert-scale and questionnaires were used. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) computer program and presented in descriptive statistics percentages and tables. The study revealed that FSC’s members were satisfied with services and products that were offered in the cooperatives; however issues of governance, fiduciary, regulatory and member participation require immediate attention. Recommendations to strengthen the regulatory framework for FSCs and FSCs’ institutional capacity were made.

The advent of trade in services theory has been a developing research topic since 1980, where various factors are in place to determine trade flows and the impact of regulatory frameworks and policies. Services trade is an important contributing factor towards economic objectives and continues to drive development. With growth in services trade across the globe there is increased value in understanding the impact of the services sector on the African continent. The evolving reliance on services towards globalisation in low-income economies is proven to contribute significantly to gross domestic product. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement was instituted to integrate economies by creating ease of access for the intra-trade of goods and services across the continent. This study aimed to explore the impact of the AfCFTA agreement on a regional financial services provider. The research followed a semi-structured interview methodology, which measured and tested the impact of the agreement on trade in services for this qualitative study. The results indicated that the service provider would adopt the AfCFTA agreement’s requirements in the expansion of its operations, to establish services across the continent. Although the minimum number of countries required supported the ratification process, a lot of work is needed to develop and understand the effect of international trade, on the back of reformative policy changes such as the AfCFTA agreement. / Mini Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MPhil / Unrestricted

Magister Commercii - MCom / South Africa's unique colonial history, apartheid legacy, and ongoing transition to democratic governance drive the country's determination to attain its development objectives. Embedded in that determination is a broad social and .environmental public benefits agenda-that is, a sustainable economic development agenda. Public benefits include, inter alia, banking access, black economic empowerment and financial sector stability and efficiency. "

This dissertation consists of three parts. In the first part, we study an oligopoly model in which firms compete across several geographic regions. This networked competition is prevalent in many markets, such energy, metals, and agricultural commodity markets. Firms operating in these industries are constrained by physical limits on production capacities. Our paper provides the first analytical study on firms' competition in industries where players are capacity constrained. We find that a reduction in import-export taxes can have qualitatively different effects on consumer welfare depending on whether or not the impacted firm is capacity constrained. Our results imply that policies that promote free trade (e.g. NAFTA, European Union) may have unintended consequence and reduce the consumer surplus in capacity constrained industries. The second part of this dissertation analyzes the pros and cons of Bitcoin payment systems. The creator of Bitcoin envisioned a decentralized payment system in which mining can be performed by anyone using their home computers. Since it was introduced in 2008, Bitcoin attracted significant attention, both by public media and by investors. This led to a surge in the bitcoin price, and its market capitalization exceeded $170 billion (as of February 2, 2020). With the rise of bitcoin price, firms started to invest in developing efficient hardware to increase their probability of successfully mining blocks. As a result, mining operations became vertically integrated with single firms designing and manufacturing mining chips, and operating them in data centers. These major developments in mining technology bring up the following question: Does Bitcoin's proof-of-work protocol serve its intended purpose of enabling and supporting a decentralized payment system? We propose a two-stage game to answer this question. Firms first invest in research and development to subsequently compete in a Bitcoin mining game. We show that firms fail to capture the surplus created from their research, because higher research expenditures induce a more aggressive mining game. We calibrate our model to rewards and operational costs observed in the Bitcoin system, and quantitatively demonstrate that the mining industry has a tendency towards centralization, against the core principles of cryptocurrencies. The third part of this dissertation studies the emerging robo-advising industry. Roboadvisors are threatening traditional wealth management firms due to their ability to offer lower fees and minimum balance requirements, as well as transparent and systematic advise. Robo-advisors had $300 billion in assets under management during 2016, and are projected to reach $2.2 trillion by 2020. Currently, robo-advising firms employ questionnaires to assess the risk preference of investors. While appealing, the use of questionnaires presents various shortcomings: (i) investors' answers do not account for emotional responses observed when the loss is incurred, (ii) survey responses are subject to noise, and (iii) risk tolerance assessments are sensitive to the specific wording and formats used in questionnaires. To overcome these limitations, we propose a reinforcement learning framework for retail roboadvising. The robo-advisor does not know the investor's risk preference, but learns it over time by observing her portfolio choices in different market environments. We develop an exploration-exploitation algorithm which trades off costly solicitations of portfolio choices by the investor with autonomous trading decisions based on stale estimates of investor's risk aversion. We illustrate how, by correcting for the investor's mistakes, the robo-advisor may outperform a stand-alone investor regardless of the investor's opportunity cost for making portfolio decisions.

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