CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW OF ELECTRONIC BANKING SERVICES 1. Overview of commercial banks 1. Definition of commercial banks Today, many concepts of commercial banks are proposed depend on the development history of the banking system and researching aspects. Based on types of services that commercial banks provide, Prof Peter S.
Rose defines: “Commercial banks is a type of financial institution that provides the most diverse list of financial services, especially credit, savings, payment services and performs larger range of financial functions than any other business organizations in the economy. In terms of main activities of commercial banks, the definition of commercial banks is understood as follows: “Commercial banks are organizations which established under the provisions of law, trading in monetary field with the regular operation is receiving deposits in many different forms, and using this amount of money for credit, provide payment services to economic entities aming at profit. PhD Tram Thi Xuan Huong, M.Sc Hoang Thi Minh Ngoc. Commercial banking textbook, Ho Chi Minh University of Economics, Economic Publishing House).
Within the scope of this thesis, the author uses the definition which is extracted from Commercial banking textbook of Ho Chi Minh University of Economics, and this definition is used throughout the thesis because of its high relevance in the Vietnamese banking system. Function of commercial banks a. Credit intermediaries The main operation of commercial banks is borrowing for lending. This proves that one of the important function of a commercial bank is acting as a credit intermediary, that is, on the one hand, the bank will mobilize idle money on all subjects in society from businesses, organizations, households, individuals,…on the Luan van other hand, the bank will use this borrowed capital to relend to entities that need additional capital.
By this way, commercial banks will be the bridge between the temporary capital-deficient entities who need to borrow, thereby creating benefits for all three parties: depositors, banks and borrowers. Commercial banks will make their own profit from the gaps between the loan interest rate and the lending interest rate. This profit is the basis and condition to ensure the existence and development of the bank. Capital flows in commercial banks (Source: Summarized by author) Through the credit intermediaries, commercial banks contribute to the utility of all participants and the general benefits of the economy.
- For depositors: they gain the benefit from the temporarily idle capital in the form of deposit interest that the bank pays them. Moreover, the bank guarantees them the safety of deposits and provides convenient payment services. - For borrowers: they will be satisfied the capital needs for business, spending, payment without incurring a lot of expenses. - For commercial banks: they will seek a profit from the difference between th deposit interest rate and the lending interest rate.
- For the economy: this function plays an important role in promoting economic growth. Payment intermediaries A commercial bank is acting as a payment intermediary when it performs the payment required by customers such as đeucting money from their deposit account to pay for goods and services or entering customers’account to collect sales and Luan van other revenues according to their commands. In here, commercial banks play the role of “treasurer” for businesses and individuals because they hold their accounts. Commercial banks perform payment intermediaries on the basis of performing credit intermediaries.
Because through the receipt of deposits, the bank has opened an account for customers to track revenues and expenses. That is the amount of money to help customers make payment via the bank, place the bank in the intermediary of payment. Besides, the direct cash payment among economic entities has many limitations like risks in money transportation, large payment costs, especially for remote customers, and this created demand for customers to make payment transactions via banks. Representative money creation Representative money is a non-material currency, essentially just numbers on a bank account which are created through the credit activities of the commercial banking system.
This currency type can be easily converted to cash, has the same function as cash and other advantages that are safe, easy to transport and preserve. The representative money creating process of commercial banks is conducted through the credit and payment activities within the banking system, in close relationship with each country’s Central Banking system. It is the ability to turn the initial deposit level at the first bank received deposit into a large amount of money when performing multiple credit payment transactions through many banks. Commercial banks make the representative money from the Central Bank.
If there are no constraints, the ability to make representative money is unlimited. However, under the control of the Central Bank, commercial banks only create representative money within certain limits. Implementation of national economic policies Despite the independent commercial banking system, it is always under the strict management of the Central Bank in all aspects. In particular, commercial banks must always obey the regulations of the Central Bank on the implementation of monetary policy to stabilize the value of money, make the amount of money supply in the economy must match the needs of society.
To do this, the attraction of domestic and foreign capital through commercial banks must be used for the right Luan van purposes and requirements of the economy. Credit generated from commercial banks must be effective on the basis of lending to expend production, develop trading, create jobs for workers and contribute to the implementation of social policy targets of country. Operation of commercial banks a. Capital mobilization Capital mobilization is the activity of creating capital sources for commercial banks, playing an important role and affecting the quality of bank operations.
This is the first basic operation of a commercial bank. Commercial banks mobilize capital in many different forms, specifically: - Mobilizing capital from deposits of residences, including demand deposits, term deposits and saving deposits. + Demand deposits is a type of money deposited by a customer in a bank without prior agreement on the withdrawal time. The bank has to pay only a low interest rate or may not have to pay interest on this deposit, because demand deposits of customers are very volatile, customers can withdraw at any time, so commercial banks do not use this capital proactively.
They have to reserve an amount of money to ensure payments when customers demand it intermediately. The bank needs to take advantage of this deposit type as its business capital because of the difference of input and output deposits between customers’ accounts in the process of capital flows, therefore, the bank can earn from these differences. + Term deposits is a type of deposits that customers deposited into banks and there is a prior agreement on the withdrawal time. This type of deposits is relatively stable as the bank can determine the withdrawal time for paying to customers on time, hence, the bank can use fully that deposits for business purposes.
With this deposit type, the bank has many maturities from 1 month, 3 months , 6 months…., which helps customers choose the appropriate term of deposits with the amount of idle money that they have. Commercial banks have the right to use term deposits in a certain time period, so this type of deposits are paid with higher interest rates than demand deposits. Luan van + Saving deposits is a type of deposits that customers deposited into banks for earning interest. When customers sends their idle money into the bank, they will be provided a savings book that they have to manage and bring it in each transaction time.
In essence, savings deposits is a part of the income of individual employees that they have not consumed yet, which is a special form of accumulating money instead of storing golds and goods. In some industrialized countries, this is a common type of deposits with high stability due to the deposit term lasting from one year or more, and this leads to the initative of the bank in the purpose of long- term capital. To attract this capital, banks often have to pay high interest rates. - Mobilizing capital by issuing valuable papers such as bonds, promissory notes, C.D (Certificate of Deposits) and other valuable papers.
+ Bond issuance is a commitment to certify the issuing bank’s debt repayment obligations (both principal and interest) to bondholders with the aim of raising medium and long-term capital under the management of The Central Bank, regulators on the stock market and this may be dominated by the bank’s reputation. + Promissory note is a short-term valuable paper (less than one year), which has same characteristics with bonds but with a shorter term, so it is used for short- term capital mobilization by commercial banks. + Certificate of Deposits is the paper which is confirming the periodic deposit at a bank. The owner of this paper will be paid interest periodically and receive enough principal until the expiration date.
After the issuance, the certificate will be circulated in the money market. + A number of other valuable papers are issued to attract capital from abroad (EURO DOLLAR), characterized by both mobilizing capital and paying interest plus principal in dollars. Banks use this type of valuable paper to attract short-term mobilized capital (3 months). Commercial banks when raising capital in the form of issuing valuable papers have to pay higher interest rates than deposit rates so when issuing, commercial banks must base on the output to decide the deposit amount, interest rate, maturity and appropriate method of mobilization.
- Mobilizing capital from the State Bank or other credit institutions: This is the capital that commercial banks get through borrowing relationship between Luan van commercial banks and central banks, between commercial banks or with other credit institutions, which is a costly capital source, therefore, the mobilization of this capital source is not really common, only in case of necessity such as the lack of available short-term capital. - Mobilizing capital from issuing shares: This is the capital that commercial banks gained by issuing shares to public by its benefits: rapid capital increase, attracting customers, improving the quality and popularity of the bank. In addition, the fact that commercial banks issue shares to raise capital is mainly related to the bank’s long-term development strategy and has high advantage over other conventional businesses because of its high professionalism and great reputation in the financial market. This can help commercial banks create and develop better relationships with commercial banks or other financial institutions and issue shares themselves and reducing cost of raising capital via issuing shares in the future.
Capital using The main activity of the bank is seeking capital to use for making profit. The use of capital is the process of creating many different types of bank assets, most of which are used for credit activities, investment and service provision. - Credit activities: This is the main and most important business activity, accounting for the largest proportion of total assets, reflecting the typical activity of the bank which is lending, bringing the largest income source for the bank. In this activity, the bank transfers the right temporarily to use the capital to the borrower, after a period of time, the borrower is obliged to repay both principal and interest to the bank.
In addition, credit activities also include a number of other related activities e,g handling of loan security assets, lending interest rate exemptions, guarantees, factoring, financial leasing, discounting, rediscounting of short-term valuable papers. - Investment activities: Commercial banks also invest in making profits such as contributing capital to enterprises, buying and selling securities in the market or lending in the interbank market to take advantage of idle capital.