There were two international standards in the nineteenth century, the theoretical gold standard and the historical sterling standard. The primary interest of this thesis is the latter, although the theoretical framework of the gold standard will also be examined. Because of its role in the London money market, particular attention will be given to the Bank of England. Since the Bank and the international standards were products of the evolutionary and revolutionary changes which occurred in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an attempt will be made to examine them within their historical context.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Government’s immovable assets are fundamental in achieving its service delivery objectives. If not put to productive uses the welfare of a country, or even its national income, could be reduced significantly. The value for money principle should resonate through effective asset management. “Poor management” of closed school buildings worth millions may be regarded as “financial wastage”. Four case studies reflecting various outcomes of re-use, abandonment and demolition will be reviewed. The application of legislation and policy on government immovable asset management are problematic when schools are closed down. The study focus will be on government immovable asset management and not the reasons for school closures. Literature in this field is very limited. The research findings could add value to the subject field by minimising the chances of a possible repetition of “bad management” of closed schools. Currently in public discourse is the possible closure of 26 schools in the Western Cape. The research could be used as a guiding document for stakeholders, administrators and other research scholars. The research objectives are to formulate a clear understanding on: The Governance of immovable asset management in government; The Responsibility of the different state stakeholders and their interaction on immovable asset management; and The participation of non-state stakeholders. A Qualitative research design is followed. Tools consist of four case studies, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. A literature review and study of applicable legislative and policy documents was done and empirical data analysed. An international best practice model is also discussed. This study has revealed various research findings through the primary and secondary sources collected. Based on these findings specific recommendations are made to the various stakeholders. The wellbeing of all stakeholders and respondents were set above outcomes and objectives that the research could generate.

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The purpose of this mini-dissertation is to analyse and establish the potential money laundering and terrorism financing risks and implications of virtual currencies on the prevalent South African regulatory and supervisory architecture. The South African financial system is exceedingly regulated and supervised to ensure that it is prudent and reputable, and to enhance the safety and soundness thereof. Recently, technological innovations and developments have created immense issues especially from a financial regulatory and supervisory perspective. Financial technology has produced mysterious phenomena such as blockchain, insuretech, crowdfunding and virtual currencies. Presently, virtual currencies, which will be the focus of this study, do not fall within the ambits of the South African financial regulatory or supervisory regime and have thus created a regulatory arbitrage. This poses a significant number of risks and implications to the South African context, namely tax evasion; crossborder illicit flow of funds; contravention of exchange control regulations; financial instability; monetary policy uncertainty; inaccurate economic statistics; non-reporting of balance of payment requirements; and money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF). The study aims to construct a clear description and categorisation of virtual currencies within a South African context. Secondly, the study will set out the risks and implications that virtual currencies pose to the South African financial system from a ML/TF perspective. Finally, the study will present a possible solution to close the current regulatory arbitrage presented by virtual currencies in the South African financial sector. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Mercantile Law / LLM Banking Law / Unrestricted

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第22625号 / 経博第617号 / 新制||経||293(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 新後閑 禎, 教授 柴田 章久, 准教授 高橋 修平 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

There are still many uncertainties with regard to whether virtual currencies will eventually replace fiat money or whether these two institutions will be functioning in tandem. Virtual currencies are still without legal tender status, but it is established that virtual currency can be utilised as a medium of exchange in circumstances where parties permit for its use. Moreover, this novel technological phenomenon engenders a myriad of risks and legal implications that are not comprehensively dealt with by regulators either locally or internationally. This dissertation investigates the risks associated with virtual currencies, the regulatory approaches taken by different jurisdictions as well as the prospects for virtual currency to function as a medium of exchange. / Mini Dissertation (LLM (Banking Law))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Mercantile Law / LLM (Banking Law) / Unrestricted

What are substitutes for domestic money and what is their legal regime? Abstract The thesis deals with the position of substitutes for domestic money in the Czech legal system and the phenomenon of substitutes for state money in general. The work is divided into three parts, in the first the author analyzes the current legal regulation of domestic money substitutes in the Czech legal system, concluding that the current regulation is clearly obsolete, while its interpretation by modern legal science is considered not only restrictive but also very formalistic, and thus not completely fulfilling the role set desired by original legislator. At the end of the first part, the author concludes that some selected forms of non-state money (especially corporate money and LETS systems) correspond to the current concept of substitutes for domestic money, but they can not be considered part of modern economic reality. In the second part, the author analyzes modern forms of non-state money with a focus on cryptocurrencies, as the most relevant form of non-state money. The author describes the gradual development and acceptance of virtual currencies both from the perspective of European regulators and from the perspective of their real economic use. The author concludes that a significant part of virtual currencies falls...

Magister Legum - LLM / South Africa’s main anti-money laundering legislation consists of 2 pieces of legislation, namely: The Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA)1 and the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (POCA).2 Money Laundering is often defined as the concealment of funds or property which has been obtained as the result of unlawful activity. It is also defined as giving the unlawfully obtained funds the appearance of legality when in actuality the funds or property is obtained unlawfully. POCA defines unlawful activity which includes any criminal offence in South African law, whether it has occurred in South Africa or elsewhere.3 Any person who has the knowledge of the aforementioned money laundering act or ought to have the knowledge may be guilty of an offence.

This dissertation traces the commodification of money in the U.S. after World War II. In 1945, all money was issued either directly by the government or, under conditions determined by the government, by commercial banks. Today, forms of money that are issued by private firms without government backing make up the majority of all money claims, and a significant part of the U.S. payment system is operated by a private organization. These forms of money were essentially in existence by 1980; hence this dissertation focuses on their emergence between the late 1940s and the late 1970s. The new forms of money emerged outside public purview. In part, this was the result of their wholesale character: they were used not by the many households and small businesses that each made modest payments but by the few large organizations that moved vast sums around. But it was also the result of a fundamental choice made by these large organizations. They created new forms of money not by trying to change public laws but by evading them, through private contract and private law. While public discourse and democratic decision-making played virtually no role in the process, the state as an issuer of financial instruments did. Central bank deposits and government securities formed the basis on top of which private actors built crucial parts of the new forms of money. Creating a new form of money is difficult because its creators need to achieve two potentially contradictory goals. To get private actors to join the market, the creators need to convince them that the products traded are equivalent to money. To keep public actors from shutting down the market, the creators have to convince them that the products traded are not money (otherwise, the creators would be involved in counterfeiting). The former goal, I will argue against non-sociological explanations, cannot be achieved only by discovering an opportunity for arbitrage, exploiting a legal loophole, or making use of technological change. As important as these cognitive innovations are, the creators of a new form of money also need to be able to mobilize preexisting social relationships, so that the necessary transaction volume to render a financial instrument a form of money is achieved. The latter goal—keeping the state from shutting down the new form of money—was particularly hard to achieve in the postwar U.S. with its policy monopoly over money exercised by the Federal Reserve, a knowledgeable and powerful institution. I will argue that private actors found it possible to create a new form of money when the Federal Reserve saw the innovation only secondarily as concerned with money and primarily as furthering one of its other goals, in particular the financing of the U.S. government and the functioning of the banking system. Drawing on new archival data, this dissertation traces the eventful process through which the creators of private money navigated the two conflicting imperatives. Chapters 2–4 investigate new forms of money as a store of value. Chapter 2 describes how securities firms and corporate treasurers created a pioneering money market—the one in repurchase agreements—and how the major commercial banks reacted by calling for a restoration of the old monetary system. Chapter 3 shows that, when this call went unheeded by the Federal Reserve, the commercial banks themselves began to create new money markets, with effects that percolated through the entire financial system and led participants to reassess their roles and the norms that guided their interactions. Chapter 4 explains the management of the first major crisis of the money market, in 1974, as a silent triumph of the commercial banks over the Federal Reserve—in a moment of weakness, the money market became entrenched. Chapter 5 turns to money as a means of payment. It shows that, in contrast to the decentralized emergence of the money market, major commercial banks in the late 1960s built a new payment system through coordinated action and, in the crisis of 1974, took tremendous risks to stabilize that new form of money.

Includes bibliographical references / The turn of the millennium witnessed the uptake and proliferation of mobile technology in developing regions. This occurrence has provided a medium for mobile telecommunication vendors within the region to create and offer services that are now accessible across socio-economic classes. A notable case of a widely adopted mobile technology-enabled service in the developing world is a mobile money service in Kenya called M-pesa. Since its inception, M-pesa has witnessed a mass adoption which has generally been attributed to prior lack of access by majority of individuals' in the country to affordable regulated financial services. M-pesa's presence has now been anticipated to afford a larger population the initial opportunity to harness economic benefits such as: increase money circulation, increase employment opportunities, facilitate social capital accumulation, facilitate savings, and promote financial autonomy, amongst others. Also, M-pesa based transactions in Kenya are reported to exceed those of western union globally. Whilst M-pesa presently vaunts large user adoption numbers, it is the first of its kind in the region to amass such achievement. Further, historically: products and services of similar nature to M-pesa have been unsustainable. A case of M-pesa's demise would have dire implication for the Kenyan economy and 30% of the households in the country that rely on it for remittances. To understand this phenomenon, extant studies have examined the drivers of adoption of this service but have slacked in subsequent investigations to understand user continuance with the service. As such, the information systems literature cautions that initial adoption of technology, although crucial, does not guarantee sustained use. Therefore it is imperative to investigate drivers of continuance. In general, extant research has not focused on investigations of user continuance intention in Africa. In response, this thesis presents an African based study on the determinants of user continuance intention towards M-pesa. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to i) identify and discuss factors from the literature that are most likely to influence user continuance intention towards M-pesa, (ii) develop a research model that is grounded in theory, (iii) test the model within the sample context to identify the antecedents and determinants of user continuance intention towards M-pesa in Kenya. A broad, critical review of the relevant literature provided basis for hypothesized relationships between the identified factors. A formal survey of users of M-pesa in Kenya comprised the phase of data collection and resulted in a usable data set of (n=434). The data collected from the respondents within Kenya was relied upon to test the hypotheses. The survey instrument used to measure the study's constructs was developed via a process of literature review, expert pre-testing, pilot testing, and statistical validation. Partial Least Square and Artificial Neural Network analyses were used to examine the study's measurement and structural model comprising variables of : behavioural beliefs (post-usage usefulness, confirmation, satisfaction), control-beliefs (utilization and flow), object-based beliefs (perceived task-technology fit, system quality, information quality, and service quality), and attitudinal belief (trust). Collectively, the afore-listed ten independent variables and one dependent variable (continuance intention) comprised the study's model. Four of the independent variables (utilization, satisfaction, flow, and trust) were hypothesized to directly determine continuance intention. Of these four, all emerged as determinants of continuance intention. However, trust emerged as the strongest determinant, subsequently, utilization, flow, and satisfaction respectively. The result was unexpected, as satisfaction (a behavioural belief) has been presented in the extant literature as the dominant determinant of continuance intention but does not hold a consistent predictive strength in a developing world. Its predictive power was diluted by trust, utilization, and flow amongst the Kenyan sample. The study's model revealed an R² of 0.334. The analyses demonstrated that user continuance intention is determined by factors across object, control, attitudinal, and behavioural beliefs. The unexpected finding of the rankings of predictive strength of the factors turns a new leaf and introduces areas of further inquiry in future studies. The study concludes with realized contributions to theory and important guidelines for current and future technology-enabled service vendors in developing regions.