Digital Transformation in Financial Services

Digital Transformation in Financial Services

0002624 | Claudio Scardovi

This book analyzes the set of forces driving the global financial system toward a period of radical transformation and explores the transformational challenges that lie ahead for global and regional or local banks and other financial intermediaries. It is explained how these challenges derive from the newly emerging post-crisis structure of the market and from shadow and digital players across all banking operations. Detailed attention is focused on the impacts of digitalization on the main functions of the financial system, and particularly the banking sector. The author elaborates how an alternative model of banking will enable banks to predict, understand, navigate, and change the external ecosystem in which they compete. The five critical components of this model are data and information mastering; effective use of applied analytics; interconnectivity and “junction playing”; development of new business solutions; and trust and credibility assurance. The analysis is supported by a number of informative case studies. The book will be of interest especially to top and middle managers and employees of banks and financial institutions but also to FinTech players and their advisers and others.
Global Public Procurement Theories and Practices

Global Public Procurement Theories and Practices

0002624 | Khi V. Thai

This book discusses current theories and practices in the field of public procurement. Over the past few decades, public procurement has had to evolve conceptually and organizationally in the face of unrelenting budget constraints, government downsizing, public demand for increased transparency in public procurement, as well as greater concerns about efficiency, fairness and equity. Procurement professionals have also had to deal with a changeable climate produced by emerging technology, environmental concerns, and tension between complex regional trade agreements and national socioeconomic goals. This volume presents sixteen case studies focusing on the themes of public procurement as a policy tool and performance-based public procurement. The first section discusses public procurement as a policy tool and the challenges involved in balancing the competing interests of market forces, legal requirements, political pressures, and environmental concerns. The second section discusses performance-based public procurement, highlighting the frameworks used to assess procurement systems, the gaps between policy and practice, and strategies for bridging those gaps. The final section of the book discusses current issues in procurement, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, risk mitigation, and procurement as a profession. By combining theory and analysis with evidence from the real world, this book is of equal use to academics, policy makers, and procurement professionals.
Statistical Learning from a Regression Perspective

Statistical Learning from a Regression Perspective

0002624 | Richard A. Berk

Statistical Learning from a Regression Perspective considers statistical learning applications when interest centers on the conditional distribution of the response variable, given a set of predictors, and when it is important to characterize how the predictors are related to the response. As a first approximation, this is can be seen as an extension of nonparametric regression. Among the statistical learning procedures examined are bagging, random forests, boosting, and support vector machines. Response variables may be quantitative or categorical. Real applications are emphasized, especially those with practical implications. One important theme is the need to explicitly take into account asymmetric costs in the fitting process. For example, in some situations false positives may be far less costly than false negatives. Another important theme is to not automatically cede modeling decisions to a fitting algorithm. In many settings, subject-matter knowledge should trump formal fitting criteria. Yet another important theme is to appreciate the limitation of one’s data and not apply statistical learning procedures that require more than the data can provide. The material is written for graduate students in the social and life sciences and for researchers who want to apply statistical learning procedures to scientific and policy problems. Intuitive explanations and visual representations are prominent. All of the analyses included are done in R.
The Business of Banking

The Business of Banking

0002624 | Elisa Giaretta | Andrea Paltrinieri | Giusy Chesini

This book offers new insights on banking business models, risks and regulation proposals in the aftermath of the European financial crisis. It investigates the main issues affecting the business of banking nowadays, such as low interest rates and non-performing loans. The combined effect of low to negative interest rates and weak economic growth has encouraged banks to shift their business towards new areas less associated with interest rates, which financial markets and institutional investors are currently evaluating. Contributions also shed new light on topics not yet fully investigated by current literature, such as banks’ short selling bans after Brexit, the European Deposit Guarantee Scheme and banks’ risk appetite framework. This book will be of interest to researchers, scholars and practitioners.