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Topic Review
Beta
In finance, the beta (β or market beta or beta coefficient) is a measure of how an individual asset moves (on average) when the overall stock market increases or decreases. Thus, beta is a useful measure of the contribution of an individual asset to the risk of the market portfolio when it is added in small quantity. Thus, beta is referred to as an asset's non-diversifiable risk, its systematic risk, market risk, or hedge ratio. Beta is not a measure of idiosyncratic risk.
  • 1.4K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Payment Protection Insurance in the United Kingdom
Payment protection insurance (PPI), also known as credit insurance, credit protection insurance, or loan repayment insurance, is an insurance product that enables consumers to ensure repayment of credit if the borrower dies, becomes ill or disabled, loses a job, or faces other circumstances that may prevent them from earning income to service the debt. It is not to be confused with income protection insurance, which is not specific to a debt but covers any income. PPI was widely sold by banks and other credit providers as an add-on to the loan or overdraft product. PPI usually covers payments for a finite period (typically 12 months). For loans or mortgages this may be the entire monthly payment, for credit cards it is typically the minimum monthly payment. After this point the borrower must find other means to repay the debt, although some policies repay the debt in full if you are unable to return to work or are diagnosed with a critical illness. The period covered by insurance is typically long enough for most people to start working again and earn enough to service their debt. PPI is different from other types of insurance such as home insurance, in that it can be quite difficult to determine if it is right for a person or not. Careful assessment of what would happen if a person became unemployed would need to be considered, as payments in lieu of notice (for example) may render a claim ineligible despite the insured person being genuinely unemployed. In this case, the approach taken by PPI insurers is consistent with that taken by the Benefits Agency in respect of unemployment benefits. Most PPI policies are not sought out by consumers. In some cases, consumers claim to be unaware that they even have the insurance. In sales connected to loans, products were often promoted by commission based telesales departments. Fear of losing the loan was exploited, as the product was effectively cited as an element of underwriting. Any attention to suitability was likely to be minimal, if it existed at all. In all types of insurance some claims are accepted and some are rejected. Notably, in the case of PPI, the number of rejected claims is high compared to other types of insurance. In the rare cases where the customer is not prompted or pushed towards a policy, but seek it out, may have little recourse if and when a policy does not benefit them. As PPI is designed to cover repayments on loans and credit cards, most loan and credit card companies sell the product at the same time as they sell the credit product. By May 2008, 20 million PPI policies existed in the UK with a further increase of 7 million policies a year being purchased thereafter. Surveys show that 40% of policyholders claim to be unaware that they had a policy.{{Citation needed|date=August 2010} "PPI was mis-sold and complaints about it mishandled on an industrial scale for well over a decade." with this mis-selling being carried out by not only the banks or providers, but also by third party brokers. The sale of such policies was typically encouraged by large commissions, as the insurance would commonly make the bank/provider more money than the interest on the original loan, such that many mainstream personal loan providers made little or no profit on the loans themselves; all or almost all profit was derived from PPI commission and profit share. Certain companies developed sales scripts which guided salespeople to say only that the loan was “protected” without mentioning the nature or cost of the insurance. When challenged by the customer, they sometimes incorrectly stated that this insurance improved the borrower's chances of getting the loan or that it was mandatory. A consumer in financial difficulty is unlikely to further question the policy and risk the loan being refused. Several high-profile companies have now been fined by the Financial Conduct Authority for the widespread mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Clydesdale Bank Plc (Clydesdale) £20,678,300 for serious failings in its Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) complaint handling processes between May 2011 and July 2013. This is the largest ever fine imposed by the FCA for failings relating to PPI. Clydesdale agreed to settle at an early stage of the FCA’s investigation and therefore qualified for at 30% stage 1 discount. Were it not for this the FCA would have imposed a financial penalty of £29,540,500.Alliance and Leicester were fined £7m for their part in the mis-selling controversy, several others including Capital One, HFC and Egg were fined up to £1.1m. Claims against mis-sold PPI have been slowly increasing, and may approach the levels seen during the 2006-07 period, when thousands of bank customers made claims relating to allegedly unfair bank charges. In their 2009/2010 annual report, the Financial Ombudsman Service stated that 30% of new cases referred to payment protection insurance. A customer who purchases a PPI policy may initiate a claim for mis-sold PPI by complaining to the bank, lender, or broker who sold the policy. Slightly before that, on 6 April 2011, the Competition Commission released their investigation order designed to prevent mis-selling in the future. Key rules in the order, designed to enable the customer to shop around and make an informed decision, include: provision of adequate information when selling payment protection and providing a personal quote; obligation to provide an annual review; prohibition of selling payment protection at the same time the credit agreement is entered into. Most rules came into force in October 2011, with some following in April 2012. The Central Bank of Ireland in April 2014 was described as having "arbitrarily excluded the majority of consumers" from getting compensation for mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance, by setting a cutoff date of 2007 when it introduced its Consumer Protection Code. UK banks provided over £22bn for PPI misselling costs – which, if scaled on a pro-rata basis, is many multiples of the compensation the Irish banks were asked to repay. The offending banks were also not fined which was in sharp contrast to the regime imposed on UK banks. Lawyers were appalled at the "reckless" advice the Irish Central Bank gave consumers who were missold PPI policies, which "will play into the hands of the financial institution."
  • 1.4K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Social Networks among University Youth
This article addresses the design and validation of an updated questionnaire that makes it possible to understand the use patterns and attitudes of university youth on social networks. The authors utilized a panel of 20 judges who were social media experts and a sample of 640 university students. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) explained 66.523% of the total variance. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), carried out to verify the dimensional structure of the instrument, reflected the appropriate parameters. The reliability study showed a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.864. These data corroborated the development of a robust and reliable questionnaire. The resulting instrument did not contain items alluding to specific social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn), but rather students’ usage patterns of them. The exclusion of items that referred to particular social networks during the research demonstrated a convergence in behavior on social media regardless of the nuances of each platform. This fact suggested that the platform was of secondary importance in the context of a new paradigm in which the type of use (viewing, posting, participating, or interacting) took precedence over the name of the network itself.
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Management System (Open Source)
Management System (Open Source) is a socio-technical system that leverages the cumulative knowledge of management practitioners and evidenced based research from the past 130 years. The system was developed by DoD components in partnership with industry experts and academic researchers and builds off of the US Department of Wars version 1.0 open source management system - Training Within Industry. The system integrates the four organizational components of Product, Structure, Process and People. In addition, the system is based on the 4 capabilities of rapid problem solving underlying the Toyota Production System: Derived from the original research of Steven J. Spear (Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute for Technology), the system balances the two dimensions of high performing organizations: integrate the whole (product, structure, process & people); and increase the rate of problem solving to manage the whole (4 capabilities outlined above). Fundamentally, the system sets the standards of management by outlining a doctrine of rules, tactics, techniques, procedures & terms. The standards are intended to motivate change by creating a tension between the organization's "current condition" and the "ideal condition" (i.e. True North). The objective of the system is to deliver more value, in less time, at less cost relative to the competition (better, faster, cheaper). For the DoD, competition is defined by the threats posed by current and potential adversaries.
  • 1.4K
  • 02 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Four-day Week
A four-day week, or a compressed work schedule, is an arrangement where a workplace or school has its employees or students work or attend school over the course of four days per week rather than the more customary five. This arrangement can be a part of flexible working hours, and is sometimes used to cut costs, as seen in the example of the so-called "4/10 work week," where employees work a normal 40 hours across four days, i.e. a "four-ten" week. However, a four-day week can also be a fixed work schedule. More modest attempts to enact a 32-hour workweek (a four-day week and an eight-hour day combined) have remained elusive in the following 80 years despite pockets of residual support.
  • 1.4K
  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Factoring
Factoring is a financial transaction and a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable (i.e., invoices) to a third party (called a factor) at a discount. A business will sometimes factor its receivable assets to meet its present and immediate cash needs. Forfaiting is a factoring arrangement used in international trade finance by exporters who wish to sell their receivables to a forfaiter. Factoring is commonly referred to as accounts receivable factoring, invoice factoring, and sometimes accounts receivable financing. Accounts receivable financing is a term more accurately used to describe a form of asset based lending against accounts receivable. The Commercial Finance Association is the leading trade association of the asset-based lending and factoring industries. In the United States , Factoring is not the same as invoice discounting (which is called an assignment of accounts receivable in American accounting – as propagated by FASB within GAAP). Factoring is the sale of receivables, whereas invoice discounting ("assignment of accounts receivable" in American accounting) is a borrowing that involves the use of the accounts receivable assets as collateral for the loan. However, in some other markets, such as the UK, invoice discounting is considered to be a form of factoring, involving the "assignment of receivables", that is included in official factoring statistics. It is therefore also not considered to be borrowing in the UK. In the UK the arrangement is usually confidential in that the debtor is not notified of the assignment of the receivable and the seller of the receivable collects the debt on behalf of the factor. In the UK, the main difference between factoring and invoice discounting is confidentiality. Scottish law differs from that of the rest of the UK, in that notification to the account debtor is required for the assignment to take place. The Scottish Law Commission reviewed this position and made proposals to the Scottish Ministers in 2018.
  • 1.3K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Club Nintendo
Club Nintendo is a discontinued customer loyalty program provided by Nintendo. The loyalty program was free to join and provided rewards in exchange for consumer feedback and loyalty to purchasing official Nintendo products. Members of Club Nintendo earned credits or "coins" by submitting codes found on Nintendo products and systems, which could be traded in for special edition items only available on Club Nintendo. Rewards included objects such as playing cards, tote bags, controllers, downloadable content, and warranty extensions on select Nintendo products. On January 20, 2015, it was announced that Club Nintendo would be discontinued in North America on June 30, 2015, and in Europe and Japan on September 30, 2015, due to an upcoming new loyalty program. Flipnote Studio 3D later became available to all North American Club Nintendo members for free for a limited time, and users who signed up to the European version of the new loyalty program during the launch period received Flipnote Studio 3D for free. On March 17, 2015, after suddenly announcing their business partnership venture with DeNA, Nintendo stated that they were working with them on a new, cross-platform membership service called My Nintendo to supersede Club Nintendo for the Wii U, Nintendo 3DS , and Nintendo Switch, alongside other devices such as tablets, smartphones and PCs. It was initially launched in Japan on March 17, 2016, alongside Nintendo's first mobile title, Miitomo.
  • 1.3K
  • 17 Nov 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Social Entrepreneurship Conceptual Approaches
Social entrepreneurship defines organizations or initiatives that, by producing and/or transacting goods or services, seek new solutions to persistent social problems, thus generating high social value. In other words, that deliberately subject their economic strategy to social priorities and place the social mission at the center of their concerns. Such social priorities include poverty, unemployment, education, health, local development, or the environment. Outside this common base, the aggregation of other characteristics or delimitations has given rise to conceptual fuzziness, namely, as to the organizational forms to be adopted (restricted to non-profit organizations or open to for-profit businesses with clear social purposes) and the weight of the social dimension in SE. Another manifestation of conceptual malleability emerges from the coexistence of different schools of thought. On the opposite side, one notes the narrowing of the concept, which mainly derives from a Westernized vision and still pays little attention to the contributions from developing countries. In addition to analyzing these topics, the current entry points out some recommendations regarding the deepening of scientific research in this field. 
  • 1.3K
  • 27 May 2022
Topic Review
Sustainable Blue Jeans Consumer Behavior
A blue jeans brand committed to the environmental cause could position itself as unique and socially responsible and attract environmentally driven consumers.
  • 1.3K
  • 29 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Conceptual Overview of Energy Security
In a dynamically changing socio-economic environment with significant technical and technological progress, the notion of energy security takes on a new, broader meaning. Modern literature presents a variety of operational definitions of energy security. Most authors dealing with the issue of energy security expose its different aspects while standing in opposition to competing concepts. As a result, literature that addresses the problems of energy policy is becoming a platform for debates on the essence of energy security and the applicability of its various approaches to individual situations. There is no unanimity among authors with regard to the theoretical framework or the components of this notion. However, the issue of diversity of views is quite typical in social sciences and should not be taken negatively. Despite this, and perhaps contrary to the definitional wealth, experts in the field of energy policy constantly stress the necessity and urgency of undertaking work on the conceptualization of energy security.
  • 1.3K
  • 19 Sep 2023
Topic Review
Resilient and Sustainable Group Decision
Group decision-making should contribute to resilience and sustainability and, particularly, the achievement of the objectives in view of future risks. Further, transparency in and participation in the decision process are needed to limit problems in the implementation phase of the decision. The literature survey here presented suggests some of the key attributes for supporting sustainable and resilient group decisions. To this aim, a focused systematic review was conducted to study the existing group decision-making methods in the literature and how the concepts of sustainability and resilience have been employed.
  • 1.3K
  • 13 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Hypothecation
Hypothecation is the practice where a debtor pledges collateral to secure a debt or as a condition precedent to the debt, or a third party pledges collateral for the debtor. A letter of hypothecation is the usual instrument for carrying out the pledge. A common example occurs when a debtor enters into a mortgage agreement, in which the debtor's house becomes collateral until the mortgage loan is paid off. The debtor retains ownership of the collateral, but the creditor has the right to seize ownership if the debtor defaults. The main purpose of hypothecation is to mitigate the creditor's credit risk. If the debtor cannot pay, the creditor possesses the collateral and therefore can claim its ownership, sell it and thus compensate the lacking cash inflows. In a default of the obligor without previous hypothecation, the creditor cannot be sure that it can seize sufficient assets of the debtor. Because hypothecation makes it easier to get the debt and potentially decreases its price; the debtor wants to hypothecate as much debt as possible – but the isolation of 'good assets' for the collateral reduces the quality of the rest of the debtor's balance sheet and thus its credit worthiness. The detailed practice and rules regulating hypothecation vary depending on context and on the jurisdiction where it takes place. In the US, the legal right for the creditor to take ownership of the collateral if the debtor defaults is classified as a lien. Rehypothecation occurs mainly in the financial markets, where financial firms re-use the collateral to secure their own borrowing. For the creditor the collateral not only mitigates the credit risk but also allows refinancing more easily or at lower rates; in an initial hypothecation contract however, the debtor can restrict such re-use of the collateral.
  • 1.3K
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
The Village Fund Program in Indonesia
This study analyzes the Indonesian Village Fund (VF) Program by mapping each VF-related activity to all 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), and then determines an SDG-based VF allocation in 2018, 2019, and 2020. This study used data from all villages in Indonesia and is the most comprehensive study in Indonesia to address the knowledge gap between VF allocation and SDGs by analyzing the distribution of the use of the VF. The objectives of this paper are: (1) to provide the extent of VF usage to provide evidence on whether this utilization was aligned with the targeted SDGs, and (2) to provide information regarding village activities funded by the VF that were linked to each SDG. The results from this analysis can be used to encourage the Government to socialize and provide an understanding of SDGs to village leaders. Moreover, since Indonesia has developed Village SDGs, which are based on national SDG targets and localization of global SDGs to adapt to local culture as well as social and environmental conditions, it is recommended that other developing countries could formulate similar strategies to help achieve their national SDG targets and to develop rural areas in a more targeted way by prioritizing the most relevant issues. The study shares lessons learned from Indonesian experience in managing fiscal policy to more than 70,000 autonomous villages through the village fund program in the last five years. 
  • 1.3K
  • 01 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Banking as a Service
Banking as a Service (BaaS) (also: Banking-as-a-Service) is an end-to-end process ensuring the overall execution of a financial service provided over the Web. Such a digital banking service is available on demand and is carried out within a set time-frame.
  • 1.3K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Emotional Advertising
The correlation and perception of advertising on adolescents have been shown to be a key factor in the survival of subjective emotional states, as emotions are evaluation patterns that influence consumer behaviour.
  • 1.3K
  • 26 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Material Passport
A material passport is a document consisting of all the materials that are included in a product or construction. It consist of a set of data describing defined characteristics of materials in products, which give them value for recovery, recycling and re-use. The core idea behind the concept is that a material passport will contribute to a more "circular economy", in which materials are being recovered, recycled and/or re-used in an open traded material market. The concept of the 'material passport’ is currently being developed by multiple parties in mainly European countries. A possible second-hand material market or material-bank could become a reality in the future. Similar concepts are being developed by several parties. Other names for the material passport are: circularity passport, cradle-to-cradle passport, product passport.
  • 1.3K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Innovation Research in Tourism
Innovation, seen as a means to cope with such change and uncertainty, is perceived as the main source of competitive advantage and performance in the ever-changing tourism domain. Such significance of innovation for the tourism sector has attracted the attention of many researchers over time, and innovation studies in tourism have increased, especially after 2002.
  • 1.3K
  • 15 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Building a Super Smart Nation
Globally, countries are increasingly facing challenges regarding their national future post the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to decreasing and aging populations; dwindling workforces; trade wars due to restricted movement of goods, people, and services; and overcoming economic development and societal problems. 
  • 1.3K
  • 21 Mar 2022
Topic Review
VocaLink
Vocalink is a payment systems company headquartered in the United Kingdom , created in 2007 from the merger between Voca and LINK. It designs, builds and operates the UK payments infrastructure, which underpins the provision of the Bacs payment system, the Direct Debit system, the UK ATM LINK switching platform covering 65,000 ATMs and the UK Faster Payments systems. Vocalink processes over 90% of UK salaries, more than 70% of household bills and 98% of state benefits. In 2013 the company processed over 10.5 billion UK payments with a value of over £5 trillion. In July 2016 MasterCard purchased a 92% stake in the company, with the remainder to be held by UK banks for a period of three years.
  • 1.3K
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Digital Transformation in Higher Education
Digital transformation in higher education does not merely refer to a technological transformation. From an institutional perspective, the digital transformation in a broad sense is understood as a way to determine the stakeholder needs and behaviors in advance, and to provide education, research, and social services in line with the demands of the pupils who take advantage of the services in a changing environment. For this reason, digital transformation in education is being implemented worldwide step-by-step, with attention being paid to helping students with digital tools that can be reachable wherever there is an online computer terminal. Saving time and resources by means of online management and tuition seems to be the consolidated challenge. This means the digitalization of core services, having academics and students with advanced digital capabilities, and decision support systems that can adapt to changing circumstances.
  • 1.3K
  • 14 Sep 2021
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