Industry 4.0 has spread globally since its inception in 2011, now encompassing many sectors, including its diffusion in the field of financial services. By combining information technology and automation, it is now canvassing the insurance sector, which is in dire need of digital transformation. This book presents a business model of Insurance 4.0 by detailing its implementation in processes, platforms, persons, and partnerships of the insurance companies alongside looking at future developments. Filled with business cases in insurance companies and financial services, this book will be of interest to those academics and researchers of insurance, financial technology, and digital transformation, alongside executives and managers of insurance companies.

The Financial Crisis was a cross-sector crisis that fundamentally affected modern society. Regulation, as a concept, was both blamed for allowing the crisis to happen, but also tasked with developing and implementing solutions in the wake of the crash. In this book, a number of specialists from a range of fields have contributed their insights into the effect of the Financial Crisis upon the regulatory frameworks affecting their fields, how regulators have responded to the Crisis, and then what this may mean for the future of regulation within those industries. These analyses are joined by a picture of past financial crises - which reveals interesting patterns - and then analyses of architectural regulatory models that were fundamentally affected by the Crisis. The book aims to allow sector specialists the freedom to share their insights so that, potentially, a broader picture can be identified. Providing an interesting and thought-provoking account of this societally impactful era, this book will help the reader develop a more informed understanding of the potential future of financial regulation. The book will be of value to researchers, students, advanced level students, regulators, and policymakers.

This book examines the financing of China's health system, argues that present arrangements are not adequate and proposes an increased role for commercial health insurance as a way of overcoming the difficulties. Highlighting that China's present social medical insurance system can only cover basic medical services, with the results that many Chinese people with higher income are going abroad for high-quality medical services and that doctors are not bringing in the salaries and obtaining the social status they expect, the book suggests that commercial health insurance offers a possible solution, in that it can help meet the demand of higher-income groups for better healthcare services while at the same time increasing the income of more competent medical professionals. The book goes on to consider the current state of China's commercial insurance industry, outlining the various challenges that the industry needs to overcome if it is to fulfil an increased role, challenges such as greater specialization, increased capacity, structural reform, improved regulation and closer integration with China's medical reform programme.

Drawing upon established academic theory, the study argues that the Big Four, as part of a globalizing transnational capital class, has dominated indigenous firms by bringing to China an ideology that came to be accepted as normative. By winning this battle of ideology, the Big Four gained access to the coercive power of the State, and to the power of transnational institutions that have subsumed part of the power of the State. Indigenous firms have pursued a counter-hegemonic strategy of undermining the ideological superiority of the Big Four through the infiltration and modification of institutional arrangements following what the academic literature calls "the long march through the institutions.

find out what works - and what doesn't - in one of the most important and hotly debated aspects of the future of the financial system A new and unique insider view of what actually works, what ought to work, what prevents it from working, and what needs to be done about it - industry experts who have to implement and work within regulatory systems give the real best practice picture The recent financial crisis has unleashed a flood of views on what happened, why it happened, and what new regulatory measures and structures might prevent or mitigate such crises in the future. Effective Bank Regulation and Supervision: Lessons from the Financial Crisis takes a different approach. Based on in-depth interviews with more than 30 senior, experienced bankers, regulators, consultants and others deeply involved in the regulatory process, it seeks to answer two key questions: Which bank regulators around the world have demonstrated relatively superior results in terms of regulatory outcomes? and What lessons for the future can be drawn from their experience? The result is a ground-breaking insight into the likely future success of bank regulation and the key factors which will determine such outcomes. Praise for Effective Bank Regulation and Supervision: Lessons from the Financial Crisis ..". Required reading for anyone with a stake in strengthening the financial system - which is pretty much all of us." Robert P. Kelly, Chairman and CEO, BNY Mellon "Steve Davis has always been innovative in looking at the banking industry, and in writing about its challenges and opportunities. Highlighting the various regulators' roles, both in their benefits and shortcomings, will usefully inform the debate on the future shape of the industry." Sir Win Bischoff, Chairman, Lloyds Banking Group plc "This is a tour de force of bank regulation. Steve Davis provides an excellent insight into bank regulatory systems, investigating the mechanics of who got it right and who failed in providing appropriate oversight of their banking systems over the crisis. A series of lucid and insightful bank regulator case studies reports the experiences of key players and highlights major areas for reform. A must-read for anyone interested in bank regulation pre- and post-crisis." Professor Philip Molyneux, Bangor University

The Crypto Market Ecosystem has emerged as the most profound application of blockchain technology in finance. This textbook adopts an integrated approach, linking traditional functions of the current financial system (payments, traded assets, fundraising, regulation) with the respective functions in the crypto market, in order to facilitate the reader in their understanding of how this new ecosystem works. The book walks the reader through the main features of the blockchain technology, the definitions, classifications, and distinct characteristics of cryptocurrencies and tokens, how these are evaluated, how funds are raised in the cryptocurrency ecosystem (ICOs), and what the main regulatory approaches are. The authors have compiled more than 100 sources from different sub-fields of economics, finance, and regulation to create a coherent textbook that provides the reader with a clear and easily understandable picture of the new world of encrypted finance and its applications. The book is primarily aimed at business and finance students, who already have an understanding of the basic principles of how the financial system works, but also targets a more general readership, by virtue of its broader scope and engaging and accessible tone.

The global challenges confronting us - climate change, poverty, inequality, and many others - can feel overwhelming. Those of us who believe in market-based solutions to these challenges get even more disheartened when we regularly see our existing capitalist system failing us, often causing more harm than good. Many examples show how the capitalist tools of finance and investment can and make real, positive impact. Approaches like blended finance and impact investing can help accelerate progress against the world's biggest remaining collective challenges. Yet use of these improved capitalist approaches remains far too subscale. Blended finance and impact investing remain 15 to 200 times smaller than traditional approaches to finance and investment. How can we continue to make capitalism work better by scaling these approaches and others? This book looks at how we can start making these necessary changes using strategies, structures, and practices that take advantage of capitalism's strengths. Its goal is to demonstrate how a reimagined financial system can be more inclusive and accountable to all. By shifting away from extractive, short-term practices in the name of shareholder primacy, we can move toward a system that values the role of all stakeholders

The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) maintains that all relevant information is fully and immediately reflected in stock prices and that investors will obtain an equilibrium rate of return. The EMH has far reaching implications for capital allocation, stock price prediction, and the effectiveness of specific trading strategies. Equity market anomalies reflect that the market is inefficient and hence, contradicts the EMH. This book gathers both theoretical and practical perspectives, by including research issues, methodological approaches, practical case studies, uses of new policy and other points of view related to equity market efficiency to help address the future challenges facing the global equity markets and economies. Information Efficiency and Anomalies in Asian Equity Markets: Theories and evidence is an insightful resource that will be useful for students, academics and professionals alike.

The Crypto Market Ecosystem has emerged as the most profound application of blockchain technology in finance. This textbook adopts an integrated approach, linking traditional functions of the current financial system (payments, traded assets, fundraising, regulation) with the respective functions in the crypto market, in order to facilitate the reader in their understanding of how this new ecosystem works. The book walks the reader through the main features of the blockchain technology, the definitions, classifications, and distinct characteristics of cryptocurrencies and tokens, how these are evaluated, how funds are raised in the cryptocurrency ecosystem (ICOs), and what the main regulatory approaches are. The authors have compiled more than 100 sources from different sub-fields of economics, finance, and regulation to create a coherent textbook that provides the reader with a clear and easily understandable picture of the new world of encrypted finance and its applications. The book is primarily aimed at business and finance students, who already have an understanding of the basic principles of how the financial system works, but also targets a more general readership, by virtue of its broader scope and engaging and accessible tone.

Collected here for the first time in English, this comprehensive book, written by an experienced insider privy to the inner workings of China's vigorous financial reforms, examines China's most important markets (money, bonds, foreign exchange, and stock) and the policies that regulate them.

This book is a simple and concise text on the subject of security analysis and portfolio management. It is targeted towards those who do not have prior background in finance, and hence the text veers away from rather complicated formulations and discussions. The course 'Security Analysis and Portfolio Management' is usually taught as an elective for students specialising in financial management, and the authors have an experience of teaching this course for more than two decades. The book contains real empirical evidence and examples in terms of returns, risk and price multiples from the Indian equity markets (over the past two decades) that are a result of the analysis undertaken by the authors themselves. This empirical evidence and analysis help the reader in understanding basic concepts through real data of the Indian stock market. To drive home concepts, each chapter has many illustrations and case-lets citing real-life examples and sections called 'points to ponder' to encourage independent thinking and critical examination. For practice, each chapter has many numericals, questions, and assignments

Enterprise management theories about the so-called bionic organization currently face a significant funding gap. Bionic theories have been mainly applied to enterprise lifecycle because of the presence of similarities between economic organizations and organisms. The digital transformation has offered advancements in the bionics research field which enable us to discuss bionic organizations for the first time as business realities in which humans and machines, especially robotic process automation systems and artificial intelligence tools, cooperate in executing operations. This book determines how a bionic organization can be defined and what are its fundamental elements in the case of banking. Specifically, it investigates the two pillars of bionic enterprise which are technology and humans, as well as the core objectives and outcomes. In order to provide an exhaustive overview, the book proposes a new conceptualization of the business model of a bionic organization on the basis of the Business Model Canvas framework. Ultimately, the study of bionic organizations is aimed to discover also how they evolved in the post pandemic phase as a result of the disruptive events generated by the spread of the pandemic. The research on the book has been conducted through a qualitative and descriptive methodology with the intent to build further knowledge about the topic starting from the information available in literature. To provide actual evidence of the reality of bionic financial services, the book includes case studies. The organizations observed in the study have been selected since they present some of the key traits identified by the bionic enterprise theory. The book demonstrates that bionic enterprise theory can be further enriched with the conceptualization of a bionic business model in which the paradigm of collaboration between humans and machines is a recurring element.

This book describes and analyses the impact of the 2007-2008 financial crisis upon the working conditions of employees in the financial services sector in Britain. It tells the story of workers being made to pay the price for a crisis that was not of their own making, but nevertheless caused a deleterious impact on their employment security, remuneration and working conditions. Evidence of fighting back against this has been sparse so that the response of employees is best characterised as 'fright' (grudgingly working harder and longer), 'flight' (leaving the sector through redundancy), and 'falling in line' (accepting the diktat of performance managements systems). Through this book we learn the reasons behind this acquiescence, with its detailed attention to topics such as the stunted development of labour unionism, the prevalence of union-management partnerships, and the occurrence of employment insecurity and labour shedding. Providing a valuable insight into the effects of the financial crash, Employment Relations in Financial Services will be useful to academics, students and also trade unionists.

This book analyses three key aspects of microfinancing, namely social purpose, commercialization and innovations and examines, through a global perspective, how these aspects helped and diverted microfinance institutions towards the attainment of their dual goals over the last twenty years. Since microfinance remains informal in nature for most economies, not all financial innovations are suitable for its needs. Hence, the arguments in the book put forth an important challenge to the advocates of innovations and subsequently highlight why MFIs should be cautious when integrating innovations to ensure its original promise. The book is based on empirical analysis by utilising the latest and global microfinance market data, rather than focusing on a specific region. Thus, the book bridges a gap in knowledge by unravelling detail of the social purpose, commercialization and innovations within the field of microfinance and will be a valuable resource for those exploring the dynamics of innovations in microfinance.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This edited volume offers a new and original approach to the study of technological change in retail finance. Documenting developments in the US alongside case studies from Mexico and Europe, Technological Innovation in Retail Finance addresses the variety of financial institutions that populated the markets for retail finance. It offers a massive research base reflecting not only breadth of contributor interests, but also a unity of purpose that comes from several workshops and comments on each other's work. Technological innovation had a major role in the shaping and developing of administrative procedures, routines, and capabilities in organizations offering retail financial services. Indeed, with the exception of contemporary case studies for the UK, the current 'state of the art' in the study of the computerization of financial services from an historical perspective is overwhelmingly focused on developments in the USA. This volume overcomes the usual bias towards the so called 'Atlantic continuity' in the understanding of technological change related to applications of information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) by offering a number of sources of distinctiveness. It shows when and how technological change altered the competitive intensity in the markets for retail finance.

The financial crisis of 1931 marked a turning point in British economic foreign policy, as decades of laissez-faire principles were abandoned and an active interventionist policy was introduced. This book, first published in 1936, provides an in-depth analysis of the change in Britain's policies, and the effects these changes had on the various aspects of foreign trade.

The main contention of this book, first published in 1978, is that international trade policy must fit the economic structure of the trading countries. The first two chapters, which compare the nineteenth and twentieth century movements towards freer trade, and show the nature of the export structure and pricing, provide the two main themes of the book: policy and the sort of industries on which the policies work.

There can be few industries which have generated as much political controversy as the world steel industry. Since 1968 the trade policies of both the US and the EEC have created a vicious circle of protectionism and delayed adjustment in their steel industries. In particular, protectionist policies by one government have tended to lead directly to rebound protectionist policies by the other. This book, first published in 1986, begins by tracing the historical roots of steel protectionism and describes the changing competitive structure of the world steel market which has led to increased government involvement in the traditional steel-making countries as they became vulnerable to imports from the newly industrialised countries. The most distinctive feature of the book is its economic analysis of a policy crisis; a crisis whose inner dynamics work against a viable solution.

The years between the Wars saw rapid and far-reaching changes to the character and distribution of the world's trade. Governments of the world attempted to mould and control their own economies, and economic nationalism grew to unseen levels. This book, first published in 1938, is the comprehensive examination of the European tariffs of the time, and it traces their effects upon the actual course of trade, and in so doing, is one of the few factual studies on the reality of tariffs.

This book, first published in 1936, addresses the need for a comprehensive study of the development of international control in the field of certain vital commodities and services. It traces tendencies of development in government policy, and shows the growth of governmental or semi-governmental machinery of an international kind, that aims at regulating the production and distribution of raw materials, foodstuffs and services.

Developing countries have for many decades waged a campaign for the global regulation of trade in primary products through international commodity agreements. Heavily dependent upon exports of primary products, developing countries hope to regulate the markets for their commodities to achieve higher prices. While there is a myriad of obstacles to agreements, the blame for slow progress is often laid at the feet of the industrial, commodity-consuming countries, particularly the US. This book, first published in 1987, is a comparative case study that closely analyses how American businesses behaved in relation to US government responses to developing countries' demands for commodity agreements for coffee and cocoa.

Since 1975 the leaders of the major western economies have gathered in annual summit meetings to try to agree a unified response to the main political and economic problems facing them. This book, first published in 1984, traces the development of the summit meetings and tries to assess their impact on western decision-making and international relations in general. The summits arose as the product of a serious crisis that shook the world economy in the early 1970s. They have been sustained because of the waning of the American hegemony that had supported the postwar international economic regime. From this it became vital for the leaders of the major economies to reassert collective leadership in order to try to re-establish a new world economic equilibrium.

The purpose of this book, first published in 1990, is to explain the varying levels of protection from foreign competition across US industries by focusing on factors that affect both the supply of and demand for the regulation of trade. What circumstances lead industries to request protection, and what factors affect the government's decision of whether or not to supply that protection? What factors best explain the actions of interest groups and the decisions of regulators? This detailed study answers these key questions and more.

This book, first published in 1992, provides an in-depth analysis of the EC policy-making processes elating to trade protection. It argues that the decision-making process is biased towards national policy-makers, leading to the political determination of the EC's administered protection, with the outcome being that protection is geared towards domestic producer interests seeking relief from import competition. This study offers a unique perspective because it locates the analysis of EC trade protection within the wider framework of EC decision-making processes.