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.

and keywords FinTech and AML from a legal perspective The subject matter of this thesis is the impact of regulations preventing money laundering and terrorism financing in the field of FinTech. The goal is to analyse these regulations and to offer a critical standpoint which would reflect the technological development in the financial sector and take into consideration the cost of adhering to these regulations. With this objective in mind, the first chapter defines the concept of FinTech, breaks down its specifics and provides typical examples of the financial services currently fitting this definition. In the second chapter, the obligations stemming from the AML/CFT rules are defined along with an evaluation of their impact on obliged persons. The current and future possibilities of remote identification which represents the simplest way of acquiring a client are further evaluated in a separate chapter. In the last part, this paper analyses the applicability of the AML/CFT Act in relation to neobanking, crowdfunding and crypto-assets. The paper concludes by summarizing the findings, formulating views on the current state of the topic, and presenting suggestions for future development. Money laundering and terrorism financing are detrimental social phenomena affecting the FinTech sector. The...

Thesis advisor: Jeffrey Pontiff / My thesis contains four essays on the pricing of financial assets and the role of non-professional investors. The first two essays describe the legal framework governing Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and the liquidity transformation functions of ETFs. The third essay examines how trading by nine different types of market participants are related to characteristics that have previously documented to predict the cross-section of equity returns. The fourth and final essay examines whether and how orders originating from retail brokerages respond to analyst recommendations. In my first essay, I describe the legal framework that governs ETFs and theoretical benefits of the ETF security design relative to two other popular investment management security structures: open-end and close-end mutual funds. To do so, I briefly describe the history of the modern investment management industry. I describe the role of Authorized Participants (APs), the main security design innovation of ETFs, and highlight the key theoretical differences between the three classes of funds. Lastly, I describe SEC rulemaking that governs the behavior of ETF Managers and their APs. In the second essay, I document a hidden but substantial cost associated with the liquidity transformation that corporate bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide. When creating new shares, authorized participants (APs) deliver a subset of the portfolio of bonds that underlie a corporate bond ETF. This subset contains bonds that realize low future returns, reducing ETF performance by 48 basis points per annum. This loss in performance cannot be attributed to forgone compensation for risk or illiquidity, but instead results from APs utilizing information regarding future changes in net asset values to strategically deliver bonds when those bonds are expected to realize poor performance in the near future. My third essay is joint work with Jeff Pontiff and David McLean. We provide the most comprehensive study of market participation to date. We assess the informativeness of 9 different participants’ trades, and how each participant’s trades relate to 130 different variables that together reflect the cross-section of expected stock returns. Firms and short sellers tend to be the smart money—both sell stocks with low expected returns, and their trades predict returns in the intended direction. Firms, however, also seem to possess private information, while short sellers do not. Retail investors buy (sell) stocks with low (high) expected returns and their trades predict returns opposite to the intended direction. All 6 types of institutional investors are weighted towards stocks with low expected returns, but none of their trades robustly predict returns. My fourth essay is joint work with Jeff Pontiff and David McLean. We ask whether retail investors are responsive to analysts’ revisions. We consider revisions in recommendations, price targets, and EPS forecasts, all of which predict returns. Revisions in recommendations and price targets portend greater retail trading in the direction of the revision. The effects are stronger for All-Star Analysts’ revisions, and retail investors also respond to All-Star’s revisions in EPS forecasts. Retail investors trade in anticipation of revisions in price targets and recommendations, consistent with analysts or brokers “tipping” some retail investors. Retail trades earn higher returns when aligned with analysts’ revision. The results show that retail investors are one channel through which analysts’ information gets into prices. Our findings also support the idea that spikes in retail trading reflect informed trading, some of which is informed by analysts. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

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The research for this thesis was conducted in village of Samene, Mali from 2006-2008 where I served as a Peace Corps volunteer. In Samene I became interested in understanding the livelihood experience of men and women and the critical factors that led to positive livelihood outcomes for individuals. The formal research question addressed in this thesis is how assets and access (social rules and norms) influence livelihood diversification options for men and women. The research is based on a mixed method design consisting of extensive individual and household surveying, focus groups, interviews, and participant observation. The Livelihood Approach is utilized to describe the assets, access restrictions and diversification strategies that comprise the livelihoods for men and women in Samene. The findings shows that while diversification activities are important to both men and women, women are unable to access the more attractive high return activities that are dominated by men. Differences in the livelihood experiences between and within gendered groups are explained by looking at an individual's relationship to the critical assets, which are identified as the keys to accessing activities that lead to greater livelihood security. Based on the research findings a new livelihood framework is advanced to show the different pathways men and women take to sustain and improve their livelihoods. This framework incorporates the concepts and processes of social differentiation, social exclusion, historical motion, power and access that were found to be critical in explaining an individual's livelihood experience in Samene. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Researchers at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Stellenbosch raised their concerns about the accuracy of inflation adjustment estimates. This led to research by Hanekom (1992), Marais (1992), Ozrovech (1992), Laack (1994) and an article by Hamman and Smit (1994). Hanekom, Marais, Ozrovech and Loock investigated alternative methods of calculating the average age of fixed assets for South African companies. They came to the conclusion that approximations of inflation adjustments by means of simplified formulas are inaccurate and should be discontinued. Alternative methods are time-consuming, data dependent and contain various assumptions that may lead to inaccurate results. Based on the findings and recommendations of the above-mentioned authors to develop company-specific inflation adjustment models, this study project will attempt to investigate the behaviour of the average age of fixed assets as calculated by the formula: Average age (year n) = Accumulateddepreciation (n) Depreciation(for year n) Various conditions that influence this specific calculation will be simulated in spreadsheet models. The behaviour of the approximated average age will then be explained by means of the results obtained from the spreadsheet simulations, as well as a mathematical formula that will be deducted from the simulated spreadsheet models. The understanding of the behaviour of the estimation of the average age of fixed assets and the conditions that influence this estimation might help to establish possible patterns that would assist with the development of companyspecific inflation adjustment models. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Navorsers aan die Nagraadse Bestuurskool van die Universiteit van Stellenbosch het hulle twyfel uitgespreek oor die akkuraatheid van inflasieregstellingskattings, wat gelei het tot navorsing deur Hanekom (1992), Marais (1992), Ozrovech (1992) en Loock (1994) en 'n artikel deur Hamman en Smit (1994). Hanekom, Marais, Ozrovech en Loock het alternatiewe metodes ondersoek om die berekening van die gemiddelde ouderdom van vaste bates vir Suid Afrikaanse maatskappye te doen. Die slotsom was egter dat die berekening van die waardes met behulp van eenvoudige formules onakkuraat is en eerder gestaak moet word. Alternatiewe metodes is tydrowend, afhanklik van die beskikbaarheid van inligting, en vereis aannames wat tot moontlike onakkurate antwoorde kan lei. Na aanleiding van bogenoemde skrywers se gevolgtrekkings, en aanbevelings om maatskappy-spesifieke modelle te ontwikkel om inflasieaanpassings te doen, sal hierdie studie poog om die gedrag van die gemiddelde ouderdom van vaste bates soos dit bereken word deur die volgende formule, te ondersoek: Gemiddelde ouderdom (jaar n) = Opgehoopte waardevermindering (n) Waardevermindering (vir jaar n) Verskillende toestande wat die berekening beïnvloed sal deur middel van sigblad modelle gesimuleer word. Die gedrag van die geraamde gemiddelde ouderdom sal dan verduidelik word aan die hand van die sigblaaie sowel as 'n afgeleide wiskundige formule vir die berekening van die waarde. lndien die verskillende toestande en faktore wat die berekening van die gemiddelde ouderdom van vaste bates beïnvloed, verstaan en verduidelik kan word, kan moontlike patrone geïdentifiseer word wat sal help met die ontwikkeling van meer spesifieke modelle vir inflasie-aanpassings van maatskappye.

The thesis defines prudence principle in accounting as are impairment of assets, provisions, depreciation of assets and deferred tax. In the first part discourses about them in light of International Financial Reporting Standards and in the second part according to Czech legislation, where are also both approaches compared within the scope of the end of each chapter.