Global Issues, Risks, And Challenges For Banks And Financial Institutions In The International Regulatory And Competitive Environment Essay. (70 Characters)

Critically evaluate here you must provide your verdict on the issues and draw conclusions as to what extent a statement or findings within a piece of research are true, or to what extent you agree with them. You must provide evidence from a number of sources which both agree and disagree with the argument you put forward.  conclusions. your decision on what you think to be the important factors and then justifying how you have made your choice.

Review this involves you thoroughly looking into a subject. This should be a critical assessment and not just a descriptive review.

Analyse break an issue into constituent parts and fully discuss these parts.

Identify and explain the nature and significance of the various forms of risk that banks face. In addition, consider and critically evaluate the view that regulators have focused only on credit risk. Draw conclusions as to how regulators might expand the regulations to take account of other forms of risk.

You may use less than but in so doing you may be penalizing yourself as it is likely to be challenging to fully respond to the coursework brief.

• You MUST state an accurate word count (excluding the list of references) at the end of your work. If you do not state an accurate word count your mark will be reduced by.
• Diagrams, pictures and charts are not counted within the word count but any list(s) of words or any other form of narrative placed in Tables in the main text and will be included in the word count.

The purpose of the report is to analyze the risks and challenges in the global scenario for the banks and FIs from the global issues and the ways for the improvement in the legislative system and regulations of the globalbanking system and financial operations.

The Global banking and financial system isthe large and wide framework of the legal agreements between the global financial institutions or banks in order to facilitate the international financial capital flows (both inflows and outflows) for the purpose of the trade financing or global investment. It is headed by the banking and financial regulators, supervisors, and institutions (like The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the Central European Bank, and others) for regulating and controlling the international banks, financial institutions, and insurance companies at the superannuation level in the global industry.At the global level, it has been observed that Central Bank is majorly responsible (in Europe, the UK, the USA, the UAE, except in the case of Commonwealth Bank in Australia and Reserve Bank in India) for the legislative structures, legal policies, and jurisdictions for the financial institutions (FIs) and banks in the most of the countries. The banks in the global context involve the categories including the Central banks, Merchant or Investment banks, Commercial banks, Retail banks, Cooperative banks, Public banks, Industrial banks, and Development Banks(Reuvid, 2014).

This assignment looks at the major global issues, challenges, and risks for the banks and financial institutions facing while operating in the regulatory and competitive environment at the international level. The report also describes the legislation system, regulation policies, and procedures for supervising and monitoring the banking and financial operations and the impact of the regulatory changes on the operations in the global setting. Finally, the suggestions are proposed for improving the regulatory environment in the global banking and financial scenario for well organizing, managing, and controlling the banking and financial operations (Rael, 2017).    

In the modern business environment of the International level, most of the banks or financial institutions (FIs) face the complex global issue and challenges. PESTLE analysis is used to analyze the impact of the external environmental changes or global issues, like the political interferences, changing economic conditions, global financial crisis, changing customers’ needs and preferences, technological risks, legal issues (taxation, laws and regulations), and environmental factors on the banking operations, investments, financial policies, and insurance operations of the banks, FIs, or insurance companies. For example, the increasing terror attacks macroeconomic issues, rapid technology changes and increasing cyber-attacks, regulatory changes, tax reforms, socio-cultural changes, and environmental pressures are such external issues that may affect the financial policies, product planning and investment policies, financial policies, and share market positioning, and foreign exchange policies of the banks and FIs while operating at the international regulatory and competitive environment.Along with this, the banks and FIS face issues, like the capital availability or finance sufficiency, quality of risk management, increasing competition level from entry of new banks and FIs, stock market changing trends, fiscal and monetary policy changes, and changing labor market conditions (like the shortage of skilled labors) that can significantly influence their banking and financial operations in the global setting (Stoner, 2012).The misconduct of the operations, Anti-money Laundering, and IFRS 9 and IFRS 16, and non-performing loans are some growing challenges for thebanks and FIs at the global scales.

PESTLE Analysis

Figure 1: Global Issues and Challenges for banks and FIs

(Source: Rael, 2017)

The macroeconomic issues, like tax policy changes and change in the national fiscal and monetary policies, such as change in the interest rates, unemployment rates, exchange rates, national GDP and currency value put pressure on the banks and financial institutes to make changes in their financial and banking policies, like decreasing the rate of interest on the loans in order to strengthen the national economy and raising the level of GDP. E.g. the global economic crisis or slowdown in 2009 is a good example of the corporate failures of the banks and FIs that was characterized by the high interest rates, inflation, and unemployment rates, lower growth patterns and decreasing the currency. This financial shock period adversely affected the financialperformance, sales revenues, stock market positioning, and share price value valuation of the banks and FIs because of lower investment by the people in the insurance, mutual funds, loans, and bonds, and share markets (Schubert, 2015).The oil prices shock 2014 is another example of the global economic crisis that is a major issue for poor financial performance of the FIs and banks; the increasing oil prices slow down the businesses of the oil companies that affect the national economic growth, restructuring of the businesses, and decrease in the government projects that in turn affect the asset value and quality, customers’ investments, profitability, and liquidity of the FIs and banks.

The global political and legal issues, like political instability, government intervention, financial policies and regulatory compliance by the finance minister, and tax rates also affect the banking and financial operations. The global issues, like the terrorism risk exposure, geopolitical risks, instability of the political system, changing regulatory environment, and changing the international banking standards and regulations are such factors that enforce for the change in the financial, investment, and operational policies and strategies of the banks and FIs. For example, the banks and FIs can face the legal risks because of changing regulatory environment at the international level with the updates of new laws and regulations, like Data protection laws, Consumer protection laws, and Anti-Trust legislationthat can enforce the banks and FIs in the term ofsecurity from the credit losses, privacy of file and documents, data security, and good customer trust(RSM, 2017).

The increasinglycompetitive environment in the global context creates stiff competition for the foreign banks from the local banks operating their banking operations in a number of nations from many years. The local banks are creating the cost competitiveness, like pricing war with the foreign banks.For example, two Western banks in the UAE have stopped their onshore banking operations and two other foreign banks curtailed their SME operations and retail banking ventures because of facing the high level or tougher competition level from the local European banks, money laundering system and difficult working environment for the foreign banks.

Impact of Macroeconomic Issues

These banks also facefinancial security issues, like terrorism financial risk exposure due to the increasing terrorist activities at the international level (Stoner, 2012). Along with this, the banks are facing a high level of competition from the financial technological firms (FinTechcompanies)that provide the financial services based on the digital software. For example, the digital payment app, like Google Wallet, PayPal, Skrill, Amazon App, and digital wallets that are based on the application software for payment or customer service transactions and create a stiff competition to the banks and FIs.

The banks and FIs also facing the global issue, like business risks arise when the banks and FIs fail to implement the long-term plan and strategies to adapt to the external changes, market conditions, customers’ demands, and shareholders’ expectations as well as inability to overcome the business risks. The financial firms, banks, and insurance companies also face the operational and systematic risks due to the human errors, server errors, the failure of IT systems, data loss or increasing insecurity risk, and customer frauds with the purpose of the fraudulent practices or deception to bankers or FIs, that may affect the banking business and financial management operations of the banks and FIs.

The regulation compliance is the biggest issue for the banks and FIs as the banks are feeling pressures from the systematic risk or errors, like the operational burden, increased sanction, and due diligence (Haine, 2018). For example, the bankingsystem faces issues from the entrepreneurs or SMEs who face the bank account-related problems because of the complex procedures of account opening and documentation as well the complex verification process, insufficient transparencies, and not enough guidelines from the bankers. More than 60% of the SMEs state that they struggled to meet the debts because of the payment delays as well as failed in securing new credit lines because of reducing exposure of the banks toward the SMEs. The SMEs are not the most attractive customer segments for the banks in spite of the SMEs contribute to more than 60% of the global economy (Gangreddiwar, 2015).

The socio-cultural issues are faced by the banks and FIs due to the not predetermined customer buying behaviors, changing preferences and expectations, and distinct investment patterns that greatly affect the financial operations and banking businesses of the FIs and banks. For example, the banks are feeling pressure for not delivering the quality services that are demanding from the customers’ expectations (Burk, 2018). Along with this, the banks in many countries are not able to satisfy the shareholders to some extent because of not delivering the enough on their investments or significant returns on the equity.

Global Political and Legal Issues

The global issue, like reputational risk is subjected to the loss of the reputation of the FIs and banks at the international level that may be caused due to the ineffective customer service and poor customers’ feedbacks or negative reviews, rigid banking system, ineffective business decisions, and data manipulations that may cause for the decreasing market positioning and the loss of the customer share.Thetechnology issues or risks are caused by the failure of the IT systems, increasing IT frauds and risks, and ineffective security system that have influenced the financial operations of the FIs and banking operations (Spedding and Rose, 2008). e.g. the data security risks is a big concern for the FIs and banks because of the system security problems, increasing IT frauds by the hackers or cybercriminals, identity theft problems, and others that maythreaten the privacy of files, documents and customer transaction information, the loss of important data, credit losses and insecurity issues by other FIs, banks, and hackers.

The banks, financiers, and insurance companies face the global issue, like the liquidation risks due tothe capital inadequacy, the lack of marketability of the investments, lending issues in the daily customer operations, shares or insurance products not sold or bought quickly that can cause for the inability of the bankers and FIs to repay the investors. The credit risks are caused due to the high credit exposures or inability/failure of the banks and FIs to meet the financial obligations because of the financial failures in the bank loans, equities, bonds, swaps, bonds, foreign commercial exchanges or interbank transactions(Richardson, Steffen, and Liverman, 2011).

The World Bank acts as the main regulatory body to govern, supervise, and control over the banking operations of the local banks and the foreign banks in each country. The World Bank maintains the national government’s reserve of the gold, financial policies, banking regulations, and the foreign currencies. There are different regulation mechanisms, legislation systems, and structures for the banking and financial regulation and the conducts of the insurance operations. The national governments in different countries employ the respective finance ministers, regulatory agencies, and treasuries for influencing the internal controls, tax impositions, tariffs, capital market control and the regulatory intervention through the banking regulators (like Central Bank in most countries). The Central Banks (like in the UK, the USA, the UAE and most of the European countries) provide the onshore banking regulations for directing the banking, monetary, and credit policy and supervises in accordance of the State’s general policy in the manner that it supports the national economy and currency stability(The World Bank Group, 2018).

Increasingly Competitive Environment

In Europe, the European Central Bank (ECB) and European Banking Authority (EBA) are responsible for supervising, controlling, and regulating the banking operations. The EBA controls on the system risks, operational issues, or institutional weaknesses for the European banks. The European Securities and Marketing Authority (ESMA) controls on the capital markets through the regulation mechanism and control on the financial operations, shares, and stock exchanges. But, In Australia, the Commonwealth Bank is the main regulator for the banking and financial operations. Along with this, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) are responsible for supervising the banks, FIs, and insurers. In India, the Reserve Bank of India is the main governmental body for supervising the banking operations, and the Securities and Exchange Board of India for the capital markets, and IRDA (Insurance Regulatory Development Authority for the insurance companies. So, there are different regulators in different countries for banking regulation, financial regulation, and controlling the insurance operations(Khushurshahi, 2017).

The banks and FIs are needed to operate the global financial operations or investment ventures under the regulatory mechanism of the global regulators (like the World Bank Group) or the multinational organization, like International Monetary Fund, and the International Settlement of Banks (like Basel Committee) that provide the regulatory guidelines for the banking supervision and global financial system.In the sequence, other multinational organizations include International Organization of Security Commission (coordinates for the financial security regulations), International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) (supervision for the insurance industry), International Accounting Standard Board (provides accounting and auditing standards), Financial Stability Board (coordinate information and other activities among the countries), and Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (collaboration on the money laundering conflicts and terrorism finance battling).

The Banking Law in a number of countries establishes the legal provisions for the banking regulations including the issuance of the currency, supervising, regulating, organizing, and supporting the banking systems and credit policy, advising the governments on the financial matters and the monetary issues, and acting as a government’s bank for other banks. It acts as a state’s financial agent at the global financial institutions. The Banking Law is related to providing the regulatory provisions for the licensing, registrations, and operational controls of the commercial banks, financial institutions, investment banks, representative banking or financial service offices, and monetary and financial intermediaries in the countries (Export.gov, 2018).

Figure 2: Global Banking Regulation System

Misconduct of Operations, Anti-Money Laundering, and Non-Performing Loans

(Source: EY.Com Publications, 2018)

The Banking Law is not applicable to governmental developmental funds, pension funds, private savings, insurance companies and agencies, public credit institutions, and governmental investment agencies and institutions. The commercial code set-out by the international Banking Law contains the details provisions for governing the bank accounts and deposits, loans, cheques, the bill of exchange, promissory note, and documentary credits and guarantees. Under the Business Laws, the private or commercial banks in each country receive the funds from the public in the market in the form of time deposits, demand, under notice, or replacement of deposit certificates or debt instruments. The Banking Law also provides the regulation or legal procedures related to issuance and collection of cheques, trading in foreign exchange of money and precious metals (like gold), and placing of the private or public bonds(EY.Com Publications, 2018).

Figure 3: Global Forum for Banking and Financial Operations

The Central Bank in most of the countries is the primary national regulatory body that is primarily responsible for overseeing, supervising, and monitoring the banking operations (Anderson and Associates, 2018). For example, the current regulatory system in the European banks includes the regulations, circulars, resolutions, and notices that are issued by the European Central Bankfor dealing with various banking issues and aspects, like bank accounts and deposits, capital adequacy norms, reserve ratios, reporting requirements, and measures for combating with the money laundering.The Central Banks also provide the legal provisions and regulatory limitations for applying to the transactions between the banks and its subsidiaries or affiliates. The restrictions have been imposed on banking lending limits to the government institutes and government-owned agencies or entities (OECD, 2014). For example, the commercial banks in the most of the countries cannot lend the sums exceeding 100% of their capital to the governmental institutions and public companies as well as not over than 25% to the individual borrowers.

The banking industry is subjected to face the principle challenges because of the amendments or updates of the regulatory changes by the Business Law. Additionally, the banks and financial institutions are needed to comply with the regulatory standards of the Tax Compliance act of the US Foreign Account. The UK and the US governments reached on the Intergovernmental agreement (IGA) for including most of the countries in the list of the jurisdictions(Ahmed and Agrawalla, 2018). The banks and financial institutions at the international level are needed to comply with the IGA requirements. As of January 2018, the financial institutions and banks are needed to implement the standards of the International Financial Reporting 9 (IFR).As per the regulation system of the World Bank Group, all banks are needed to comply with Basel III for meeting the capital adequacy requirements. The banking regulators provide legislation as per Basel III for the secure financial transactions, transparency of the taxation, capital liquidity, banking financial statements and auditing reports against the conviction to the financial frauds/ scandals, theft, dishonesty, embezzlement, or bad intent(International Finance Corporation: World Bank Group, 2017).

Regulatory Environment in the Global Banking and Financial Scenario

The banking regulators (the World Bank) and the international financial and banking institutions (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank, HSBC Global Bank, and others)across the countries arerequired to establish a sound financial system for the banks and FIs. For this, these can introduce the standard reporting system, transparent fiscal and monetary policies, financial regulation mechanism and standardized banking policies for the clear identification of the corporate governance standards, risk management plans, and internationally accepted standards for the financial, economic, and statistical standards in order to address the global issues and major risks for the banks and FIs. In regard, some improvements could be made in the Banking and Financial Regulations for ensuring the internationally standardized regulatory system for regulating, supporting, supervising and managing the bank operations and financial investment operations efficiently (Aven, 2015).

There should be strong financial and banking regulation aimed at reducing the global markets systematic risks, increasing the taxation transparency, and strengthening the capital requirements, capital adequacy, and financial reforms. The regulation system should be subjected to the legal requirements, guidelines, and restrictions designed to maintain the transparency in the financial reports, customer purchase transactions, the integrity of the financial systemaccounting and auditing standards, and internal control for the crisis resolution and insolvency. The regulation standard will assist in reducing global issues or risks, like hacking or financial attacks, financial scandals, frauds/cheating, and data insecurity or misrepresentation of the financial reports.The banking regulatorsand the international financial institutions should update the regulatory changes through the amendments of the banking regulations, standards of operational excellence, and sufficient legal provisions and policies for minimizing the impacts of the global issues on the banking operations.

New regulations could be focused on expanding the regulatory framework for the banking systems by tightening the micro and macroeconomic policies, as well as a strong protection system for the banking operations and the security of the financial transactions from the cyber-attacks and secrecy of the data and financial information.Moreover, new capital and bank structure regulations could be implemented, intended to strengthen resilience to provide greater data security, customer data integrity and accountability of the transactions, and prevent the financial crisis.The regulators, administrators and relevant authorities in the banking and financial sector should direct or instruct the banks and FIs to present the accurate and timely the auditing reports, like the CSR report, income statements and Risk assessment report for checking the status of the risk management plans and policies, the CSR standards and transparency of the transactions and accounts (Hasson, 2018).

Suggestions for Improving the Regulatory Environment

The Central Bank and its authorized members can provide the legal provisions for having a standardizing process for the accounting opening procedures of opening the accounts for the SMEs, professional Groups or individuals without creating complexities or problems to them. The banks and FIs require following of the regulations for the information governance to ensure the effective information system management (e.g. Automatic Information Exchange) and regular reports on their CSR reports, financial performance, risk assessment report, macroeconomic policy, and data security and transparency. The SMEs or individuals, who apply for the open accounts in the banks, are recommended to have the local residential addresses for addressing their commitment to the local economy and endeavors (KPMG, 2018). The share ownership should also be considered by the banks for assuring the shareholders to transfer the shares to their chosen holding structure that can save the businesses of the banks from 6-8 months in the processing time for opening the account.

Basel IV and V should be expected to bring in force for reducing the complexity of the Bank’s internal models, risk exposures, and low-risk portfolio (like mortgages or high-quality loans). Along with this, the banks could be asked for preventing the financial crimes (like money laundering, terror attacks, bribery, and financial frauds or theft), breaching sanctions and collect the taxes by increasing the tax rates tosome extent (e.g. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). Additionally, the banking regulators and governmental authorities could be instructed for following the ethical code of practices, corporate social responsibility principles, environmental standards, standard employment practices, and the financial inclusion for avoiding the misconduct of the business operations of the banks and FIs at the global level. The international standard regulatory framework for the capital adequacy, liquidity, leverage ratio funding, recovery and resolution regimes could be introduced that will force the banks in many countries to prepare the balance sheets and comply with all constraints aiming at fully utilizing the capacity under the ratios (Sadgrove, 2016). The Automated Compliance could also be considered for allowing the banks for the automation of the processes by eliminating the much intervention of the human factors as well as minimization of the risks through the automation techniques (artificial intelligence and robotics).

Conclusion

Finally, it is concluded that banks and FIs in several countries face several global issues (risks or challenges in the global environment) because of the regulatory changes with new regulations, tax reforms, rapid technological changes, changing economic conditions and market forecasts, and changing customers’ expectations and preferences. The global issues can threaten the market capitalization and financial positioning,corporate performance, investment operations and capital flows of the financial companies and banksin the international markets because these put pressure on the FIs and banks to make changes in its banking financial policies, product planning, investment, and customer service operations as per the latest trends, customers’ preferences, and external environmental changes. Thesebanks and FIs at the international level face the major risks, like credit risks, liquidity risks, market risks, investment risks, economic risks, political risks, cyber-security risks, operational risks, technology risks, legal risks, and reputational risks at the international level.

It is also studied that the Central Banks in the most of the countries (like Central Bank in the USA, the UK, European countries and the USA, exception in the case of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Reserve Bank in India) under the legal provisions of the National Banking and Financial system are responsible for regulating, supervising and directing all types of banks and financial institutions in the respective countries through the regulation mechanism, policies, taxation, and relevant laws.

The banks and FIs can ensure the sustainability of the businesses in the highly competitive environment of the representative nations by using the risk assessment process for assessing the impact of the global issues and risks and good controls on the risks. In the sequence, the risk management tools, like Risk Assessment Report by using the Risk Radars could be used to identify, prioritize, analyze and communicate the global issues or threats for reducing the impact of the high-risk exposure from the global issues on the financial and banking operations, insurance and lending activities, and investment planning operations.

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