Bank Financial Management Macmillan Latest Edition

[Myra Krallman]

ThePalgrave Macmillan Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions is the longest established book series covering banking and financial topics. The series started in 2005 and since then more than 130 texts have contributed to the series covering an extensive array of contemporary issues spanning financial crises, risk management, types of banking (commercial, cooperative, Islamic) as well as country studies and specific themes that are of interest to academics, bankers and policymakers alike.

More recently authors have turned to focus on a variety of areas not least the impact of new technologies that are transforming banking business. Series contributions examine a wide range of topics including cloud computing in the financial sector, crowdfunding, changes in payments systems, changing bank business models and the regulation of mobile money.

It is not possible in this brief summary to cover all banking and financial areas covered in the series but as you can see from above a broad range of areas are covered. Also it is essential to note that banking and financial system institutional features are extremely complex and important. The series offers commentators the opportunity to contribute to the debate about the future of banking and financial systems across the globe as well as discuss key operational and policy issues that continue to interest academics, policymakers and practitioners alike.

Professor Philip Molyneux, Series Editor of Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions, is Dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Turn to this journal for briefings, analyses and updates on all aspects of law and regulation affecting banking institutions. The depth of coverage is as impressive as the range. From a close-up investigation of Canadian financial regulations before and since the global financial crisis, to a profile of New Zealand's regulation and governance of its non-bank financial sector, to insight for international banks on compliance with anti-money-laundering legislation in Malaysia, the journal presents sophisticated analysis, and in-depth, expert advice.

Published quarterly, the Journal of Banking Regulation offers detailed, insightful coverage of a wide range of relevant topics. Among the security issues addressed are deposit protection; banking supervision; enforcement decisions in banking regulation; corporate governance in banks; anti-money laundering legislation and regulations. International banking is also examined, with coverage of the Basel Accords, cross-border competition in banking services; international accounting standards; cross-border regulation; and cross-border bank insolvency. Management of funds is another area accorded extensive attention, including harmonization in banking markets; monetary integration; models for banking risk; credit risk supervision; capital adequacy; and systemic risk in banking operations.

The Journal is an essential resource, benefiting a global audience of academics and researchers, central bankers, banking supervisors, financial regulators, compliance officers, risk management executives, policy makers, banking associations, attorneys who practice banking law, accountants and bank auditors both internal and external.

Satyajit Bose teaches sustainable investing, cost benefit analysis and mathematics, and serves as Associate Director of the Program in Sustainability Management. His research interests include the value of ESG information, carbon pricing, the link between portfolio investment and sustainable development in emerging markets and the optimal use of environmental performance metrics for long horizon investment choices. He is co-author (with Dong Guo and Anne Simpson) of The Financial Ecosystem: The Role of Finance in Achieving Sustainability, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019. Satyajit has extensive expertise in investment banking, asset management, financial restructuring and automated weather risk management. Among other positions, he was a mergers & acquisitions banker, directed quantitative trading strategies at a convertible arbitrage hedge fund managing $1.5 billion in assets and developed machine learning algorithms to optimize weather-based decision tools.

Integrated financial management information systems (IFMIS) are systems to support management of public sector budgetary, financial, and accounting operations and promote better public financial management (PFM) with a centralized registry of public sector revenues and expenditures. The IFMIS integrate budgetary, accounting, treasury, and public debt management processes, as well as generate corresponding reporting documents, mainly the financial statements.

The successful implementation of an IFMIS will produce timely, relevant, and reliable financial data to promote fiscal discipline, assist with resource allocation, and improve operational efficiency and fiscal transparency. IFMIS, therefore, constitute a powerful tool to enhance the PFM of countries, although they tend to be very complex and demand significant human and financial resources.

Following two decades of operation, several countries have engaged in updating their IFMIS, specifically Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. Despite institutional differences and varying levels of systems development, there are a number of strategic aspects that should be considered to improve the success of the design and implementation of IFMIS so as to ensure its benefits from the outset. The most significant considerations are the political economy, information technology programming strategy (i.e., in-house, outsourcing, or customized software), software guarantees, and acceptance testing, as well as actual implementation and systems maintenance.

The two key objectives of this chapter in its conveyance of knowledge for an optimum IFMIS are (i) to analyze the main characteristics and establish the state of their development in Latin America, including the upgrade progress of IFMIS that is currently being carried out; and (ii) to identify key aspects that should be taken into account when implementing a new IFMIS including features such as project management, function integration, technological and functional definitions, and process prioritization during the various stages of development.

The chapter is divided into four sections, the first of which is an introduction on the theory of PFM and IFMIS. The second is a description of current characteristics of IFMIS in Latin America and the third includes the key aspects to consider during the updating and strengthening of IFMIS in the region, including the political economy of an IFMIS project; conceptual model; management and administration of the project; information technology programming strategy; improvement of budgeting, accounting, and financial management efficiency; level of integration of these functions; establishment of a treasury single account (TSA) as a module; project development prioritization; importance of the testing stage; guarantee period and systems maintenance strategy; and change management. The fourth section presents the main conclusions and the challenges to implement the IFMIS in the region.

PFM is a broad and complex concept that has a variety of dimensions that take into account the political economy of public institutions and the diverse fields and disciplines within government (e.g., legal aspects and management systems, organizational theory, computer science, and human resource management) (Allen, Hemming, and Potter, 2013).

The concept of PFM, therefore, is a general term that includes a combination of administrative elements, tools, and management systems that generate information, according to certain processes and rules, to support fiscal policy decision making (Cangiano, Curristine, and Lazare, 2013). PFM is also a set of directly and indirectly related processes and instruments that support mac-roeconomic estimates and projections to collect and allocate resources and report financial outcomes (Schick, 2013). This group of processes and instruments incorporates some practices such as fiscal rules and fiscal councils, the medium-term fiscal framework, a results-based budget (RBB), and IFMIS.

The main objectives of PFM are prioritized to ensure fiscal solvency, appropriate allocation of resources, and efficient public delivery of goods and services (Schick, 1998). To achieve them, PFM procedures and systems must operate efficiently and integrally within an institutional framework that incorporates appropriate and steadfast rules, structures, processes, and capacities.

IFMIS is essential to provide fiscal transparency (i.e., clarity, reliability, frequency, punctuality, relevance, and openness) by gathering data to enable the publication of past, present, and future public finance positions (IMF, 2012).1 These elements are critical to the effectiveness of fiscal policy.

IFMIS is also essential for public management reform in its entirety due to the capacity it has to integrate the diverse administrative functions of the public sector and to link PFM to the management of human resources, assets, and the procurement of public goods and services, among others. In effect, the evolution of IFMIS in Latin America has seen many changes in public administration that changed the focus from a legal and formal approach to a more managerial one. IFMIS, therefore, has the capacity to support decision making beyond matters of finance by contributing to the modernization of public administration so that the governments can delivery public services more efficiently (Faras and Pimenta, 2012).

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