Business Research Assignment: Literature Review on Decision-Making Process of Australian Banking Sector

Question

Task: Write a business research assignment presenting a literature review on the technological implementation in the accounting and finance sector in Australia.

Answer

Project title
The topic selected for this business research assignment is the technology implementation in the accounting and finance in the banking sector in Australia. To summarise the topic, it is about the changes in the technology which is taking place in the accounting and finance of the banking sector in Australia. Other than that, it also makes it able to analyse the challenges and the issues which are faced during the implementation phase of the technology in the banking sector and what are the possible benefits which could make it more beneficial for the banking sector.

Research questions
The research questions for the following could be as follows:<

• What are the technologies which are implemented in the accounting and finance in the banking sector of Australia?
• What are the security challenges and pros which are linked with the implementation of certain technologies such as cloud computing and big data?
• What are the managerial implications in the sector?

Research objectives

• To evaluate the impact on the decision-making process of the accounting and finance of the banking sector in Australia.
• To identify the challenges in security and the possible benefits from the implications of the technology.
• To determine the factors which could be impacting the implementation process.

Literature review
When it comes to organisations and especially the banking sector, it would be one of the very difficult tasks to take up the task to pace with the increase in technology that is happening around the world. In the banks during the traditional periods, all the accounting data were stored in the form of paper ledgers and books of accounting (Salehi and Alipour, 2010). Various books were being maintained which kept the record of every penny which was entering and leaving the bank. However, doing so also created a lot of human and operation errors. The manual process was both prone to errors and also, they were time-consuming. This is when IT took over and they created software’s which could change the traditional methods of accounting and finance in the banking sector (Joshiet al. 2010). With the help of technology, the same number of tasks could be done at a much lesser time and it is less time consuming than the traditional process. While in the traditional process the accountant and the finance department had to do all the input and the calculations. With the use of the new technology, all they need to care about is the input of the data and the rest of the things are done within seconds and with zero error (Joshiet al. 2013).

Impact of technology on Management and Accounting professionals
When it comes to technology it is having a huge impact on the modern banking managers and the accounting and financial personnel who are working at the banks in Australia. According to Ghasemiet al. (2011), wherein the traditional method the accounting and the finance officials were to do every step of the accounting till the formation of the reports. While on the other hand, the same person needs to analyse the data as the rest of the part is automatic.

Moreover, besides knowing accounting and finance it is also providing the managers and the officials with the knowledge of using the technologies associated with their traditional knowledge which is an added advantage. The job of the bankers is complicated and however, the implementation of the technology has made the overall process much more demanding. On the contrary, Anagnostopoulos, (2018), suggests that the implementation cost of the technology in the banking sector is much higher and therefore, they need to have annual cyclic maintenance. However, the author also supports the fact that it also helps to reduce other costs such as stationery cost, storage cost and so on. Today for the banks going paperless is one of the huge decisions they could make, and it is one of the initial steps towards having a more sustainable future ahead (Alalwanet al. 2017). Some researches also suggest that the technology is improving every single day therefore, there is always room for improvement not just for the company or the banks but for the management, stakeholders and the customers of the banks who are at the priority.

Technologies that are implemented in accounting and finance
Over the past few years, banks have been reluctant to update their overall system of operations. However, with the advent of technology, they are bringing in some of the major changes in the technology used in the accounting and finance of the banking sector in Australia. Some of the technologies which are used are:

Blockchain
Blockchain is one of the technologies which is used for describing the distributed ledger technology. It could be considered as the distributed database but with no involvement of DBA (Hassani,et al. 2018). Other than that, with the help of the following it allows multiple parties to access the same data at the same time. Therefore, all the staffs would be able to access the same information they are provided with the authority to access (Guo and Liang,2016). One of the major areas where the following is being used is in the area of clearing and settlement. According to one of the reports the Accenture is estimating that it would be able to save around $10 billion if the blockchain technology is being deployed and this could also improve the efficiency of the clearing and the settlement systems (Crosbyet al. 2016).

Instant Payment
The world slowly is moving towards an efficient cashless economy therefore, the expectations around the customers are also changing dramatically. In the words of Zhonget al. (2019), both the customers and the banks are finding so that they can have the facility of instant payment. When it comes to online payment, they need to replace the cash payment, therefore, they are finding the ways which could be used for the following even when the infrastructure for the following is lacking. One of the examples of other countries that are making the effort is Kenya who is partnering with P2P payment for having the experience with their customer.

Robotic Process Automation
When it comes to banking there are volumes and volumes of unstructured data which needs to be structured and analysed exponentially which is one of the important aspects at the time of the digital economy. Therefore, banks need to have the technology which could mimic the behaviour of humans and also it could complete some calculations at faster speeds. According to Fernandezand Aman, (2018), these are the technologies which are having machine learning processing, robotics and automation which could make the accounting and finance of banking more efficient. According to the reports presented by Deloitte, it shows that there are more than 88% of banking professionals believe that such technology is a strategic priority.

Security challenges and benefits linked with the implication of technology
Since banks are using the technology, therefore, various risks are also associated with the data and the information which are secured in the banks. Some of the security risks which are linked with the implications of the technology are:

• Malware is one of the common threats for the banks as if the cell phones or computers are being infected by malware it could impact the security of the bank (Drig? and Isac, 2014).
• Use of third-party services – Many of the banks are using third party software and services to better serve their customer. However, if the security of the third party is not up to the mark this could impact the security of the banks.
• Data manipulation – Various hackers are not stealing the data and information, rather they are altering the information stored with the bank. Therefore, as such banks are losing millions of dollars every year. And this type of attacks mostly goes unnoticed (Wang, 2016).

There are benefits of using these technologies in the banks and some of the benefits are:
1. Convenience – One of the biggest benefits is that can handle the transactions 24/7 automatically and it could be used by any staffs and customers from anywhere in the world.

2. Easy analysis – It makes it easy for the accounting and the finance officials to handle the calculations and rather than focusing on the calculations they could focus on the analysis and data and the rest of the things are done with the machine (Drig? and Isac, 2014).

3. Less human error – Machines are capable of handling complex data. Therefore, there are fewer chances of human errors as the data are being manipulated by machines and algorithms and not human staffs (Dangolani, 2011).

Literature gap
Before the following research being conducted other researchers also took the matter into their hand and conducted research and gave their overview in the following research. There were various researchers where some of them were supporting the use of technology while on the other hand somewhere preferring the old traditional method of the ledger for storing the information. According to Salehi and Alipour, (2010), the use of a ledger is better than the use of the cloud for the storage of information. They are having their benefit of keeping the hard copy of the information as the data on the cloud could be easily compromised and could be misused if it falls in the wrong hands. While on the contrary, Joshiet al. (2010), suggests that, while ledge is having their benefits, the cloud storage is having their benefits of their own as it will help in storing the data and information and also at present with the increase in security the data which are stored in the cloud are much more secure. Secondly, in support of the following Guo and Liang, (2016), suggests that it is difficult to maintain the ledger and finding it alone is a tedious task. The registers and the copy of every ledger would rather make the task time taking.

Next is the use of blockchain technology which is now the heart of the majority of the business. Blockchain and big data are the two major technology which is being utilised by the majority of the business and organisation. Data and information are some of the most valuable assets which the banks have with themselves from the customer. Therefore, they need to make proper use of the information and also safeguard them. As per Crosbyet al. (2016), one of the major advantages of using the blockchain is that it is more secure and they make the entire transaction secure. However, in the research, the researcher did not mention the benefit it provides to the accounting and finance of the banking sector. Furthermore, there are also researches done regarding the use of technology in the banking sector by Anagnostopoulos, (2018), and how they are benefiting the customer. However, it failed to discuss the managerial implications of the use of technology in banking in the financial and accounting department of the banking sector. In the following research, all the research gaps would be discussed which have not been done by the previous researchers.

LR and the theoretical base for the answers to research questions
For the following literature review, there isa various research paper that has been read and analysed. Along with that they have also been understood as to what the past researcher have done to get an idea as to what could be done in the future research in the following research. Therefore, in the process, it provided the answers to the research questions which have been raised in the following research. The LR also provided knowledge as to what are technologies being used in the banking sector for accounting and finance. In the LR it is also discussed regarding the challenges and the benefits which could be faced by the implementation of the following technology such as cloud computing and big data. Therefore, these are the theoretical aspects of the data and hence using the following could help in answering the questions which are being raised at the beginning of the research. The literature review also discusses the impact on the managers and the employees who are working at the bank and it could be seen that it makes them more efficient and less human error are being found. Hence, it helps in answering the question that what impact does the technology is having over the staffs and their managerial implications. When the operation in the following is fast therefore the decision-making process gets easier and it makes it simple for the managerial head of the company to make a better decision for the organisation. ?

Reference list
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Anagnostopoulos, I., 2018. Fintech and regtech: Impact on regulators and banks. Journal of Economics and Business, 100, pp.7-25.
https://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/id/eprint/41340/1/Anagnostopoulos-Y-41340-AAM-1.pdf Crosby, M., Pattanayak, P., Verma, S. and Kalyanaraman, V., 2016. Blockchain technology: Beyond bitcoin. Applied Innovation, 2(6-10), p.71. https://j2-capital.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AIR-2016-Blockchain.pdf

Dangolani, S.K., 2011. The Impact of information technology in banking system (A case study in Bank Keshavarzi IRAN). Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 30, pp.13-16. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811018283/pdf?md5=ad1f4a542f25c1db7f554d3740d77aa7&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042811018283-main.pdf&_valck=1 Drig?, I. and Isac, C., 2014. E-banking services–features, challenges and benefits. Annals of the University of Petros?ani. Economics, 14, pp.49-58. https://www.upet.ro/annals/economics/pdf/2014/part1/Driga-Isac.pdf

Fernandez, D. and Aman, A., 2018. Impacts of robotic process automation on global accounting services. Asian Journal of Accounting and Governance, 9, pp.123-132. https://ejournals.ukm.my/ajac/article/download/25271/8771

Ghasemi, M., Shafeiepour, V., Aslani, M. and Barvayeh, E., 2011. The impact of Information Technology (IT) on modern accounting systems. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 28, pp.112-116. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811024621/pdf?md5=11a86e829a3c3f1fe725bbadd9a8838c&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042811024621-main.pdf&_valck=1

Guo, Y. and Liang, C., 2016. Blockchain application and outlook in the banking industry. Financial Innovation, 2(1), pp.1-12. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s40854-016-0034-9.pdf

Hassani, H., Huang, X. and Silva, E., (2018). Banking with blockchain-ed big data. Journal of Management Analytics, 5(4), pp.256-275. https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/15629/1/Blockchain.pdf

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