The Size and Growth of the Financial Sector in Australia

Discuss about the US Financial Institutions.

Financial markets have turned out to be the most liquid & largest in the United States. In the year of 2016, the finance altogether with insurance shows 7.3% of gross domestic product which is $1.4 trillion in amount. This sector’ growth is increasing at a high rate and has enumerated a number of economic activities by way of direct and indirect jobs (Adelaja, 2015).

The technology is the key base of the banking sector with annual expenditures of the industry exceeding an estimate of $30 billion. Over the last years, the focus of the banking technology developments has shifted. However, it is now experiencing a large number of mergers and acquisitions after limitations on interstate branching and banking had been lifted and therfore, the technology part of the merging of two entities turns out to be a challenging task. With increased number of acquisitions, a number of lessons were learned by such institutions. However, with time, the advancements in Internet and early adoption of it lead to an experience of dynamic changes by the technology field. It resulted in a rapid increase in the market capitalization of internet related entities. With heavy investments in internet, the focus of the banks moved to cost reduction, strengthening and organizing. New advancements like Basel II and Check 21 are coming into effect. Other innovations in the banking technology are also having an impressive effect like web services, wireless connections, and increased bandwidth (Bierman & Smidt, 2010).

The security and flexibility remains one of the major concerns of this banking technology. Community banks, being largely dependent on the technology, offer various products and services so as to match with the requirements of the retail customers. Considering the increased competition, even the small banks are getting under pressure to install well-functioning and advanced technology so as to provide advanced services like supporting customers, administration and financial accounting & reporting. It is clearly evident from the aforesaid facts that the banks will continue to advance in terms of technology through internal growth & acquisitions. Coming to the complexities, corporate governance and managerial diseconomies arises. There is a heavy burden on the financial & risk management systems. Financial risk models are used in this field for better management of risk & Basel II is being eventually prepared for early implementation (Dayananda, Irons, Harrison, Herbohn, & Rowland, 2008).

The Role of Technology in Banking

Other advancements have been adopted by the banking technology such as cloud computing that has expanded the mobile and online services and has reduced the costs and most importantly, is meeting up the customer expectations. The other elements of data analytics and automation of manual work through robotic processes are being continuously implemented to establish a strong control & for the purpose of cost reduction. The advancements such as Internet of Things and distributed ledger of technology were seen only in the initial stages of banks commercialization. The benefits of such advanced technology could be enumerated in the following points (Menifield, 2014)

• Increased access to Internet and better serving of customers.
• Provides enhanced opportunities in the risk management field.
• Increased speed of services in the market.
• Establishment of a strong control over operations.
• Transformation of institutional cost structures.

The Australian financial institutions are in the stage of facing continuous changes. The changes can relate to the advancement of new innovative technology, uncertainty of failure of certain systems, expansion of online system and elimination of manual work, all this altogether indicates that the future of banks will be different from what banks are today. The capital ratios of banks are above the minimums. The capital generation in this sector is being supported by high profits, strong performance of bank assets, and the low charges of certain services like charge for bad and doubtful debts and stabilization of nonperforming assets over past few months. A wide variety of services rendered have been transformed with the technological advancements. Such advancements aims at reducing the cost of providing services, transfers, storage of information, etc (Peterson & Fabozzi, 2012). More complicated and well-functioned systems are used with highly trained personnel. One of the key advancements in this field in Australia is increased use of derivative products. Banks, considered as critical financial intermediaries, are responsible for adoption of technological innovations after proper check on the operations and controls so as to improve the financial system’s stability and advances the economic growth. Banks have a safe method to implement technology innovations. However, their ability of moving towards better and advanced innovations is directly affected by the nature and level of regulatory requirements and supervisory expectations. That is why, such worries have been taken care of so as to enable banks work practically and capitalize on innovations and experience high growth.

The Fin-tech (financial technology) investment has been rising at an alarming rate. The reason for the same can be explained simply. Most of the SME’s in Australia are involved in debt of some kind. As per the statistics only 30% of such enterprises are debt free. In order to keep up with the rate of banking facilities required technological advancements are important. One of these technological advancements includes 24*7 availability of bankers over various communications platforms. Under this system the investors can anytime communicate with their bankers over the various platforms. One of such advancement includes cloud based internet banking. Application of artificial intelligence has helps the bankers reduce the communication by almost 60 percent. The block chain pilot which connects both the financial and financial users on one platform has evolved and has been providing great feedback.

Challenges and Complexities of Banking Technology

Online banking systems provide its customers with secured sites and serve them with banking facilities via web pages. The facilities are of various type such as fast online transactions, easy fund transfer, bill payments such as credit card bill. Payments, loans arrangements, monthly rental set up, investment processes, bank statements for checking up of account balances, transactions details, etc. Currently, the world is said to be experiencing a Mobile Revolution. The online system owns a SMS facility, that is, whenever the customer executes any transaction online, an SMS is being sent to the customer’s registered mobile number. Mobile phones facilitate access to official web pages (Rivenbark, Vogt, & Marlowe, 2009) .

From the ethical point of view, the implementations in the online banking and the electronic cards, following points should be considered (Seitz & Ellison, 2009):

PRIVACY: In personal accounts, the data of an individual are kept safe and secured and should be in the data base and should set up a ethical perceptions among the banking operators. Needs have been considered that the privacy should be the most responsible factor for the banks.

OWNERSHIP: This refers to the handling of information by the banks and ethically, the information of accounts, privacy settings in the bank sites, a proper implemented security system are the key factors to be considered.

The above stated two points are one of those areas where most of the problems occur. From the social & ethical perceptions, the following problems are addressed when dealt.

Considering everything stated above, the technology, where on one side is widely used and helpful to customers, is also creating a lot of issues & problems. The data that is being processed into information is a statement that arises a number of fears such as leaking of information, mixing of information of different customers, server down due to poor connectivity, which is being misused for other malicious practices, etc. Social and ethical issues are such issues that affect the users directly and indirectly both. Also, there can be legal issues arising too (Fridson & Alvarez, 2012).

The advancements in terms of innovations and creativity in the field of technology, the manual work has been automated and the transactions have became more flexible due to fast online systems and through the use of electronic cards such as debit cards and credit cards. The Mobile revolution is one of the most demanding & trending initiative of this generation that the bank accounts and related banking transactions can be made through the mobile phones it. But, the question of security keeps on arising and that is why, a lot of new laws have come into effect so as to secure these services legally. Legal initiatives are a way of protection of ethics and morals in the right way (Ittelson, 2009).

Thus, we see that the ethics, social and legal aspects are directly or indirectly related to the technology world. This isn’t the issue that varies from country to country but it is rather a world issue. As we can see that the every country is heading towards forming a technological based sector, be whatever the sector is, the system should be made by the use of high level software and a strong control should be established and a continuous monitoring of all the practices and policies and processes should be considered. A strong legal system above all this will bind the sectors with laws and regulations so as to prevent the malicious intentions with the fear of being penalized with amounts as well as imprisonment. Thus, every person plays an important role, that is, the business role of implementing the strong online and information system, customers by adapting themselves to such changes and the government by binding everyone in the hands of law.

Conclusion

It won’t be an unnecessary statement to say that 2018 would be the year of transformation for the banking financial institutions since 2008 with the new technologies all being set to be launched in the nation such as open banking regulations coming into force. The banking sector combines the user experiences & cloud based services, new methods & transformations so as to achieve customer loyalty, effectiveness, efficiency & stability (McLaney & Adril, 2016). As digital technologies are getting matured, newer systems are getting into trend and the customer expectations continue to increase and banks are on a continuous track of transforming their efforts from narrow targets of digital functions into broader concept of digitalization of the enterpris

References:

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