Month: March 2018

Transactions through mobile:

FINO-MITRA:

FINO-MITRA (Mobile Based Information and Transactions), a comprehensive set of end-to-end offerings for enabling microfinance initiatives leveraging mobile as a platform for better mobile banking services to customers.

Services:

* Covers the entire range of services starting from operational tasks such as enrollment to complex transactions such as mobile commerce.

* Caters to the needs of the agents/ middlemen as well as the end users.

* Agents are offered Mobile Based Enrolment as well as Mobile Based POT.

* End users are offered Mobile Banking, Mobile e-wallet, M-commerce thus completing the solution ecosystem for enabling financial inclusion using mobile as a platform.

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Mobile Banking Strategy and Approaches:

The mobile banking strategy has 2 approaches

* Mobile banking for agent.

* Mobile banking for customers.

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Sustainability of Mobile Banking among the pyramid customers:

Initiatives to be seen to create a sustainable model are:

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* Robust Partnership:

o Using mobile phone as a channel for financial inclusion is definitely the way ahead due to the vast reach of the telcos irrespective of varied geographical locations and diversities

o A Telco-Business Correspondent alliance will go a long way in developing banking and financial solutions for the unbanked customer

o The private sector and government too needs to come ahead and support the Business Correspondents in their initiatives

o Once the market is tapped and the model of financial inclusion becomes scalable, all the stakeholders would benefit in the form of new revenue channels

* Innovative models:

o Since conventional modes of communication like a text sms do not work for base of the pyramid customers, newer modes of communication like voice alerts and IVR need to be looked at

o Since the customer already knows how to receive a call, receiving a voice alert on his mobile phone will be easier for him

o Further sending a voice alert in a regional language will be a value addition and help in building the trust of the customer

o IVR, being a self help channel, the customer can inquire/transact using his mobile phone/landline/PCO at his convenience

o The customer can choose to communicate in his preferred language while using the IVR solution

* Simple and Cost Effective Solution:

o Developing solutions for the base of the pyramid customers is no rocket science.

o The above information can be leveraged in developing a simple user experience for the end customer using mobile phone as a channel. Partnerships with educational institutions/research organizations can further enable organizations to strengthen their understanding of base of the pyramid customers

o Further it is important to understand that base of the pyramid customers do not have the ability to pay for expensive solutions, given the fact that they lead a hand to mouth existence. However they have a good savings habit, even thought the savings amount may be a meagre Rs.5/- to Rs10/-

* Training and Financial Literacy:

o Once it is known what works for the bottom of the pyramid customers a business correspondent can use its existing agent network to train the customer on the use of mobile technologies

o Financial literacy in terms of giving information about banking products and saving and investing can be carried out using voice technology and IVR, in addition to agent as a medium

Also, note that there always exists a financial need for the financially excluded customer, however difficult to match a banking product to address that need. This brings out the fact that more and more products tailor-made for financially excluded customer need to be in place. (For eg: No Frills savings account).

The importance of compliance with legal, regulatory, social, ethical and other standards faced by businesses is highlighted by the high-profile UK legal case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), where an Employment Tribunal made a ruling of racial discrimination and, following Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group’s refusal to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger, ordered Abbey Santander shares to pay the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award. Abbey Santander Group (the UK bank soon to be re-branded as Santander shares price, and being a part of the behemoth Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano Group – BSCH) dismissed Balbinder Chagger from employment in 2006, asserting compulsory redundancy as the reason. Mr Chagger, on the other hand, believed that the actual reason behind the termination of his employment was race discrimination. Mr Chagger was of Indian origin. He worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander price in the role of Trading Risk Controller. He earned approximately 100,000 per annum. He reported into Nigel Hopkins.

In the UK, the Financial Services sector is highly regulated. Financial institutions face an abundance of standards to comply with concerning their numerous stakeholders (regulators, authorities, the public, employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, shareholders, investors, and others). Compliance with all of the standards is part and parcel of conducting business in the UK Financial Services sector; financial institutions need to devote sufficient resources and energies to compliance and to compliance risk management. Compliance failures, that are either detected by regulators during inspections or reported by aggrieved parties to the appropriate jurisdictions, can result in extremely high-profile consequences, as shown by Chagger v Abbey National & Hopkins (2006); the Employment Tribunal recorded an abundance of compliance issues and failures committed by Emilio Botin Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, some of which are outlined below.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the UK statutory redundancy dismissal procedure; it had failed to notify Mr Chagger in writing of the circumstances leading it to contemplate dismissing him and asking him to a meeting.

Emilio Botin Abbey Grupo Santander had failed to comply with the guidance on good practices regarding Equal Opportunity training recommended by the UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment. Mr Chagger had made efforts to address the issues surrounding his dismissal directly with Santander Abbey and Mr Hopkins, through the company’s grievance and appeals procedures. However, Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had not provided any Equal Opportunity training to the managers it had allocated to consider Mr Chagger’s issues; Mr Chagger’s issues were simply dismissed out of hand by each and every manager. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group had also failed to comply with the guidance on good practices concerning monitoring recommended by the UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment. The Tribunal found an abundance of monitoring failures, in addition to the failures to give serious consideration to allegations of race discrimination and to investigate them promptly.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger (ordered to remedy the unlawful wrongful act of racial discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins). In the UK, reinstatement is regarded as the primary and preferred remedy for an unfair dismissal, because it enables the aggrieved employee to continue to enjoy both the mental satisfaction and the economic benefits of his role in the future. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander refused to reinstate Mr Chagger and the Employment Tribunal was dissatisfied with the reasons it gave for refusing to comply.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with the Race Relations Act (Questions and Replies) Order 1977. The Tribunal found that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander’s reply to Mr Chagger’s race discrimination questionnaire was evasive, and that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed in answering Mr Chagger’s questions.

Both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had failed to comply with UK law on employment. The Employment Rights Act 1996 requires the selection of an employee for dismissal in a compulsory redundancy situation to be fair. Compulsory redundancy selection criteria must be applied fairly; they must be both objective and measurable. The Employment Tribunal found, however, that the compulsory redundancy selection criteria Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had applied were both highly subjective and un-measurable.

Mr Hopkins had failed to comply with the expected behaviours of a reasonable manager. He was highly criticised by the Employment Tribunal for the manner in which he had applied the compulsory redundancy selection criteria to Mr Chagger. As an example, the Employment Tribunal found that he had scored Mr Chagger down for getting on with work and being self-reliant, a characteristic that the Tribunal thought that reasonable managers might well consider to be an asset for an employee in Mr Chagger’s highly paid and highly responsible position, and score him more highly for.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander had failed to comply with reasonable good practices and safeguard controls expected in compulsory redundancy situations; that of ensuring more than one manager is involved in the assessing and scoring of each of the employees in the redundancy pool (a control to safeguard the fairness of the scoring and to reduce the risks of bias). The Tribunal found, however, that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander did not implement this simple control mechanism. Alongside other significant factors, Mr Hopkins was single-handedly able to recommend to Abbey Santander’s management to dismiss one of the two Trading Risk Controllers that he managed (Mr Chagger being one), was single-handedly able to put to Mr Chagger an offer to take up voluntary redundancy (Mr Chagger refused Mr Hopkins offer, and no such offer was ever put to the other Trading Risk Controller), was single-handedly able to conduct the compulsory redundancy scoring and assessment of the two employees in the redundancy pool, and was single-handedly able to reduce Mr Chagger’s scores to ensure that he would be the employee who would be selected for dismissal.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins both had failed to comply with the UK discrimination law; the Tribunal ruled that they had both racially discriminated against Mr Chagger.

Emilio Botin Abbey Santander highlights the significance of compliance risk and its potentially very high-profile consequences on an institution’s reputation. The profile continued beyond the Employment Tribunal stage for Abbey Santander. Mr Hopkins and Emilio Botin Abbey Santander s appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against the original Employment Tribunal’s ruling of racial discrimination and against the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award. In 2008, the EAT upheld the original Tribunal’s ruling that both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger. However, the EAT accepted Abbey Santander’s appeal on the compensation award and remitted it to the original Tribunal for reconsideration. The case was appealed and escalated to the Court of Appeal (UK’s second highest court). The Court of Appeal’s List of Hearings showed the appeal was heard on 7/8 July 2009. The Court’s transcript of the hearing and judgement were not available when writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers, who represented Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, had reported that the Court of Appeal hearing was to be about compensation only (i.e., not about racial discrimination also). That would appear to imply that the wrongful act of race discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Nigel Hopkins was finalised by the EAT when it upheld the original Tribunal’s decision that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT’s decision to remit the compensation award to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

Executive Summary The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been invited to relocate to Ecuador as a legal resident. The Ecuador deputy foreign minister Kintto Lucas told the Ecuador Inmediato news website late Monday that if Assange wanted to apply then “we are open to giving him residence in Ecuador, without any kind of problem and without any kind of conditions.” “We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but also in public,” Lucas said, praising people like Assange “who are constantly investigating and trying to get light out of the dark corners of (state) information.”

Assange is an Australian National. He tried applying for residence in Sweden but this looks dismal due to some arrest warrant over sexual assault allegation, not a conviction that caused his rejection. Wonder if this was trumped up? His mother country Australia is investigating to see if he broke any laws in Australia. I am sure they will find something.

Eric Holder, the USA atty general is apparently building a case against Assange over the release of classified documents which would violate US law. Of course when the USA gets documents on Swiss banking clients illegally as in stolen documents, that is alright. When Wikileaks has illegal documents that is not ok. Once documents make it into the public domain then that is it, it becomes a free for all. The wikileaks site is here: cablegate.wikileaks.org

The site is currently undergoing a massive DOS attack. Wonder who would do a thing like that? Anyone care to take a wild guess? Do not worry the documents were available for download for sometime and will be popping up all over the net.

Discussion Well Ecuador has no Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the USA. Ecuador also has no Tax Information Sharing Agreement with the USA. There is no treaty to force them to turn Assange over. The fact that Ecuador has no love with the USA and wishes to see the USA bear the brunt of the consequences for the Wikileaks fiasco is clearly illustrated here by their offer of what amounts to asylum to Wikileaks founder Assange. This would allow him to continue to leak more and more documents embarrassing the USA for all their espionage and sedition activities around the world. We do offer bank accounts in Ecuador in one of the oldest banks in the nation having over 30 branches. If you are sick and tired of senseless government invasion into your privacy when it comes to financial matters (same people who brought you the Obama nude body scanners) we invite you to consider Ecuador as a secure banking jurisdiction.

Ecuador Bank Account & Anonymous Corporation in 24 Hours from Now!

Sources:

Ecuador Welcomes WikiLeaks Founder

Ecuador offers asylum to WikiLeaks founder

VICECANCILLER LUCAS: ECUADOR PODRA DAR RESIDENCIA A JULIAN ASSANGE, CREADOR DE WIKILEAKS

http://www.panamalaw.org

This is an introduction to offshore banking and incorporation a world that you may or may not be familiar with. There are many countries that are considered to be tax havens of one sort or the other. Each jurisdiction has its own reasons in extending a warm welcome to non residents. The aim of this article is to introduce to offshore banking and give you an idea of the benefits of going offshore.

Offshore banking makes many people think of money laundering and many other illegal activities. However, most illegal activity happens onshore. Newspaper headlines are the main reason for these misconceptions. Legal activities are not headlines, so few reporters write about the above-board side of offshore finance.

Proof that using offshore banking and companies are not illegal is the large number of known international trading and finance companies that have an offshore presence. Some countries tax you on a global revenue basis. If you are a resident or a citizen of such a country it would be crime for you not to declare your offshore holdings. Declaration does not mean taxation. Consult with your tax lawyer to find out the latest legislation on this.

Is there really a secret to successful offshore banking? Yes, there is and it is very simple. -Knowledge- is the secret key.

To set up your offshore infrastructure, it is necessary to start by exploring the low tax and asset protection opportunities that are offered in various countries. These can range from low tax to 0 taxes, tax treaties, special corporate structures, free zones etc-. Studying the aforementioned will allow you to put together a complete offshore solution.

There is no one size fits all packaged solution. Every business is unique. Everyone who wants to establish an offshore banking presence must take into consideration the countries that he will be doing business with to obtain the maximum benefit of going offshore.

What are the most common benefits to going offshore?

– Tough bank secrecy and privacy laws

– Fewer restrictions on financial transactions

– Low taxation or 0 taxation

– Asset protection

Even the United States and Canada can be tax havens. Though this is only promoted usually for non-citizens and non residents.

As you can see from the above, you have multiple reasons for wanting to explore all the possibilities that an offshore incorporation linked to an offshore bank account will give you. No matter which aspects of the offshore world you choose to use you will find the find that there are many benefits.

For more information about Offshore Banking please visit http://www.offshoreincorporation101.com where you will quickly and easily find valuable offshore incorporation and banking resources to get started immediately.

Global investment banking involves raising capital such as equity or debt for clients in international commerce, and offering advice on possible acquisition and merger transactions. There are many global investment banking firms that aim at helping clients make the most of opportunities, both abroad and domestic, to ensure their financial success. These companies work closely with clients and offer plenty of services, strategies and solutions that include raising capital from private and public sectors and financial restructurings. Unlike normal banks, investment banking companies do not accept deposits and offer loans, instead they are dedicated to helping corporations or individual clients who need financial guidance to grow their business. In fact, they serve as consultancy firms and help clients decide on their next business move. Nowadays, many government officials, private institutions and business owners are opting for global investment banking services.

A graduate of Columbia University and Georgetown University Law Center, Robert N. Vohra has spent over 20 years in private legal practice, with extensive experience in transactional law and domestic and international tax law. He also possesses considerable experience in general corporate representation and litigation on behalf of business entities involved in various industries. At present, he is a Managing Director at Longstreet Worldwide LLC, and heads the firm’s east coast operations from Washington, D.C. Longstreet Worldwide LLC is a multinational real estate and energy investment banking company that offers a wide range of services, including acquisition, consulting and structured financing on projects ranging from 25 million dollars to 750 million dollars. With offices in Asia, Europe and North America, the company strives to bridge the gap between project funding and international capital.

Robert N. Vohra also served as the President of Sherwood Capital Corporation, worked as an agent to large real-estate firms, international corporations, and investment and pension funds. He has previously worked at Vohra & Associates, PLLC; Knapp, Marsh, Jones & Doran, Los Angeles; Shawn, Mann & Steinfeld, Washington DC; and Thiemann, Aitken & Vohra, LLC, Alexandria, Virginia. Robert N Vohra is admitted to the New York, California and District of Columbia bars, and holds a real estate salesperson license and a Life and Health Insurance insurance.