This thesis analyses an international sales contract especially its two parts, delivery and payment terms. Objective of the thesis is to present the high importance of delivery and payment terms in international sales contracts, how they influence the price as well as the whole business transaction. This text is devided into two parts, theoretical and practical. The first part deals with the whole characterization of an international sales contract, its belongings, legislative definition and detailed description of the delivery and payment terms. International chamber of commerce and insurance are also mentioned. The practical part concerns with anylysis of the particular examples from Ceco-legno company.

Due to the increasing economical significance of information services the thesis attempts to map possible payments models (revenue streams) and compile relevant selection criteria. First part is therefore dedicated to clarify the very basic terms, such as general and information service, followed by a description of web services as an implementation of their particular subset. This somewhat more technically and technologically oriented chapter covers standards as XML-RPC, SOAP, REST, WSDL and UDDI. Next part's goal is to explore the most important non-functional aspects of information services operation, including QoS and security, guaranteed by outlined SLA contracts. To meet these requirements, additional infrastructure components are needed, such as an identity management, monitoring, metering and accounting. Different pricing strategies, involving differentiation and bundling, are followed by an analysis of possible payment models themselves, divided to both revenue (transactional, subscription, register, licensing, one-time) and non-revenue (provider-supported, advertisement, freemium) based. Covered models are briefly described and their advantages and disadvantages proposed, as well as their infrastructure prerequisites and key metrics. The final chapter compiles relevant selection criteria and uses them to compare the chosen models, so that providers are given a guide when dealing with a service pricing.

Outsourcing is global phenomenon. All companies, as well as banks, detach their lateral activities. The question is if outsourcing is possible also in foreign payment department and which kind of outsourcing select here? Is for bank better to outsource only technical components, partial or total processing of cross border payment? Practical example should gives an answer.

This thesis studies massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) and their business models. Purpose of this work is to analyze current MMORPG market and business models which are currently used. The main goal and asset of this thesis is concept of new business and payment models that could be used in MMORPGs in order to increase number of customers and to raise profits. Part of the concept is the analysis of possibilities of player's history to create a profile suitable for personalized advertising. The last goal is analysis of ways that developers of MMORPGs use to motivate players to to play long-term, so they use the service and generate profit.

The goal of this work is to define and analyze european integration within the payment system of the European Union, with the main focus on project SEPA and its payment instruments. In first part it covers the legislative phase, the general characteristics, goals and advantages of the project, institutions responsible for the implementation and coordintation of the project, EU clearing system and standardization of SEPA payment instruments. Analytical part of thesis focus on description and analysis of economical effects of project and individual SEPA payment instruments and their implementation into national payment system of the EU member states. The last part deal with the issue of implementation of SEPA project in Slovakia.

The introduction of a liberalised electricity market has brought a new challenge to generating companies as well as system regulators. Under this more competitive environment, generating companies are exposed to various risks that might compromise their investment return. Moreover, the various risks in the market affect each type of generation technology in a different way; hence influence the technology choice. Furthermore, it is not yet clear whether the investment cycles in a liberalised electricity market will take place in an orderly fashion or whether 'boom and bust' cycles may arise. As a consequence various market designs, investment incentives and policies have been implemented by system regulators to try to ensure the security of supply. Investment decisions under a market with incentive mechanism are even more complicated to model because the generating company needs to forecast the revenue that the new investment will make from both the energy market and the mechanism. This thesis develops some models that could be used by system regulators to study the performance of market designs and by generating companies to assess a new investment under a liberalised electricity market. Three main models have been developed to serve these purposes. A generation expansion model has been developed using Agent-based modelling approach. In this model each generating company makes investment decision taking into account their competitors' investment strategies and the interactions between them. Several incentive mechanisms are also modelled to study their impacts on the generating companies' investment decision and the dynamic of the investments. A more comprehensive investment framework for a generating company to evaluate an investment in a new power plant has also been developed. The framework consists of two stages: 1) it first models the expected future investments and retirements from all the companies in the market and 2) then calculates the market prices and revenues of the new investment against the future system expansion obtained in the first stage. Two investment models have been developed using this framework. The first model is a probabilistic valuation model to assess investment considering risks and uncertainties. The second model is developed to evaluate investment in an oligopoly electricity market taking into account various risk characteristics of different technologies. The investment framework for a generating company to evaluate an investment is also extended so that the generating company can evaluate investments in a market with an incentive mechanism.

The main objective is to analyze various possibilities in credit risk management from a perspective of a domestic company dealing mainly with foreign customers. The thesis contains both theoretical and practical part and includes general characteristics of risk and different types of risk in international business. It puts emphasis on credit risk, its origin and types of credit defaults. Furthermore there are included various methods used for counterparty risk estimation, credit risk valuation anf its elimination in form of setting up credit limits based of rating agencies recommendations or financial analysis, choise of relevant payment terms etc. The thesis contains several classic and multifactor models used in credit analysis. Main topic is credit risk management and methods for the risk elimination such as factoring,forfaiting, guarantees, collaterals or insurance. The last part demonstrates a practical case using the knowledge from the theoretical parts.

This thesis deals with issues of debt forgiveness of natural persons on theoretical and practical basis. First part of thesis describes clarification of procedure of insolvency and explains key concepts. Practical part of the thesis is dedicated to analysis of debtors who went successfully through the procces of debt forgiveness since the beggining (insolvency suggestion) till the end (resolution of satisfaction of debt forgiveness). The goal of thesis is to clarify debt forgiveness in the context of whole process of insolvency procedure on the theoretical basis and to make detailed structured analysis of debtors who fulfiled all conditions of debt forgiveness by law.

Orientation: The available literature has revealed a polarised picture regarding the effects of race on CEO remuneration. This division centres on whether race is a beneficial factor or not with regard to the level and sensitivity of remuneration received. Introducing South Africa’s affirmative labour policies and the growing societal calls to better explain executive remuneration creates the unique opportunity to examine the effects of race on CEO pay. Research purpose: The purpose of the research centred on two important themes. Firstly the research sought to investigate the effects of race on the sensitivity of executive pay to corporate performance. Secondly the effects of race on the level and structure of executive pay was probed. Motivation for the study: The primary motivation of the study centred on determining whether race is has an affect, if any, on the remuneration paid to CEOs in South Africa. This will assist in understanding whether the affirmative polices implemented in South Africa have made any impact in the top level of executive remuneration. Research design: The study was designed to be quantitative, descriptive and longitudinal in nature utilising valid secondary data sources. The BFA Macgregor online financial database was selected as the most appropriate source of both corporate performance information and directors’ remuneration. Nineteen black CEOs were identified along with a random sample of 45 white CEOs. Following the data been analysed for reliability and validity it was then subject to primary and secondary statistical tests to determine significance and correlation strength. Main findings/results: All components of South African CEO remuneration studied were found to strongly correlate to PAT and EBITDA and to a lesser degree ROE and HEPS. ROE and HEPS have shown correlation strength growth in recent years. This collection of measures reflects a balanced basket of accounting-­‐based and non-­‐ accounting based measures. Black and white CEO mean remuneration when compared was found to have no significant difference due to race. A notable difference found was the higher degree of pay-­‐performance sensitivity and variability seen within the black CEO sample. Practical/Managerial implications: King III compels boards and remuneration committees to ensure remuneration of directors is fair and reasonable, sensitive to performance and aligned with the strategy of the organisation. Ensuring realistic pay-­‐ performance sensitivities are not just a corporate governance requirement but also help alleviate principle-­‐agent issues while correctly incentivising the CEO. Boards looking to appoint black or minority CEOs should continue to remunerate in a equitable and fair manner and be aware of such mental biases such as the “inverse Matthew effect” and other social out-­‐group biases especially when evaluating performance. Contribution: The study showed that race doesn’t affect the level of CEO remuneration but does impact on the pay-­‐performance sensitivity and the variability. The difference in sensitivity and variability could indicate the presence of mental biases such as the “inverse Matthew effect” and other social out-­‐group biases when evaluating performance. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lmgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

<p>Ransomware, a form of malicious software, takes users’ files hostage via encryption and demands payment for their return. Since its inception, ransomware has branched into many different variants, some of which threaten users with scare tactics in order to evoke payment. For this study, four variants of ransomware were examined by presenting vignettes via an anonymous online survey. No actual malware was installed on any devices throughout this study. Their emotional responses were captured as well as their level of familiarity with information security. Responses to the survey after the simulated ransomware vignette were recorded to gauge how users would react to a ransomware attack. Data was analyzed to discover which types of ransomware evoked payment as well as if information security knowledge also had an effect on likelihood to pay. This data is intended to be used to develop better prevention methods and messaging, with an emphasis on promoting training on malware avoidance. The study found most individuals did not choose to pay, and this could be attributed to a distrust of the ransomware threat. Self-reported information security behavior appeared to decrease payment evocation, however, peer information security experience and prior exposure to malware appeared to increase payment evocation.</p>