What has happened in Great Britains economy over the last two years Essay

What has happened in Great Britains economy over the last two years - Essay Example The ability of the British Government and Bank of England to manage the British economy can be closely monitored by carefully observing and analyzing the historical trend of UK’s unemployment rate, gross domestic product (GDP), balance of payment, and price stability. Between 2011 and 2012, the unemployment rate in UK remains as high as 8.02% and 8.13% respectively (Statista, 2013a). The fact that the unemployment rate in this country has increased by 0.11% is already a sign that the economy of UK has not really been good after all. (See Appendix I – Historical Trend: Unemployment Rate in UK on page 13) produced within a country in a given period of time† (Mankiw, 2012, p. 494). It means that UK’s yearly GDP can be used to closely monitor the actual economic activities that had taken place in this country (Office for National Statistics, 2013a). Based on the current market prices, GDP in UK has somehow been showing a flat trend between the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2011 and the 3rd quarter of 2011 to the 2nd quarter of 2012. During the 4th quarter of 2012, the GDP of UK has declined by 0.3% as compared to the previous quarter (Bank of England, 2013; Office for National Statistics, 2013b). Basically, the sudden decrease in domestic demand, the presence of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the sudden reduction of the North Sea oil output explains why the GDP fell by 0.3% during the last quarter of 2012 (Bank of England, 2013; Office for National Statistics, 2013b). (See Appendix II – Historical Trend: GDP on page 14) Balance of payment provides the â€Å"summary of transactions between domestic and foreign residents for a specific country over a specified period of time† (Madura, 2010, p. 27). It means that the balance of payments would show the summary of import and export of goods and services including the financial transfers between UK and other countries (Sloman, 2004, pp. 516 –

Advantages of E-banking

Advantages of E-banking Chapter 1: Introduction Introduction Nowadays, Malaysia is a multi sector economy and technology development based on the presence of many technological inventions. Traditional banking act as physical bank and delivery channel which to give customers to place or get their money out of the bank safety deposit boxes, managing checking or current accounts, paying cheques drawn by customers. However, e-banking is one of the technological inventions that give conveniences to customers to manage financial transactions on a secure website performed by retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society. E-banking is also called electronic banking which is the automated delivery of new banking services and products directly to customers through electronic, interactive communication channels. It brings many benefits and capabilities to customer compared to traditional banking. E-banking is fast and convenient way of using computer to easy access to the bank in 24hours. E-banking utilizes the internet system as the delivery channel by which to accomplish banking activity, for example, paying bills, transferring funds, viewing checking and savings account balances, paying mortgages and purchasing financial instruments and certificates of deposits (Haque et al, 2009). Internet banking enable customers to access their general information and accounts of bank products and services through PC or other intelligent device using web browser software on 24 hours a day and 7days a week, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft internet explorer (Mohamad, Hanudin, Suddin, Noren, 2007). The development in information technology have had an tremendous effect in development of more flexible payment methods and more user-friendly banking services in the world of banking (Serkan, Safak, Eda, 2004). There are some features that fall into several categories of internet banking which are transactional, non-transactional, financial institution administration, support of multiple users having varying levels of authority, transaction approval process and wire transfer. In transactional, e-banking act as account and financial transactions, pay bills, wire transfer and apply for loan or new account, investment purchase or sale and others. Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) is an electronic billing which customer can pay bill and receives payment easily, faster, and conveniently over anywhere and any times. Customer perception is interpretation of sensory mind and experienced by customer. The convenience of e-banking are attracted customers and provided no cost charged to customers. Customers have started accepting this internet service and assessing the banks based on their easy to access and convenience. With great confidence toward e-banking, customers are willing uses the internet banking to transfer fund, pay bills, and lot more with a excellent-secured system. It also can establish the relationship between trust and loyalty of customer toward e-banking. Internet banking in USA and Europe The dramatic growth in internet usage has generated a segment of customers with the ability and desire to conduct banking transactions completely online (Mathew and George, 2003). The internet explosion in the late-1990s brings people more convenience with various applications over the web. In the mid-1990s, customers using internet as monetary business transaction over the web as the financial institutions had implemented e-banking. The majority of US-based banks are escalating their investment in technology and hedging their bets while research specifies that a substantial portion of the customer base may always demand the type of personal interaction that can only be provided by individual branch personnel (Alstad, 2002). TowerGroups prediction is highlighted by CRMToday on IT spending by large banks in USA, which the amounts is 24.1 billion in 2004 as compare to 22 billion in 2002. Besides that, many US banks, such as Bank of America and Umpqua Bank are lending from social media channels, offering social networking, pod casting, web casts and other interactive tools. Now competitors can establish an internet bank for as little as $6 million in the USA compared to the cost of setting up a traditional brick and mortar bank (estimated at between $25 and $30 million) (Nathan, 1999). CRMToday (2003a) also stated that without major consumers adoption internet banking would not achieve as profitable as promise although there are increasing in amounts of online banking customers. According to the European Central Bank in 2002 (centeno, 2003), the level of services and its quality differ according to the country and the banks even though all main banks provide internet banking services. Bughin, 2001 investigated that the adoption rate is examined to be averaging only 17% of internet users or less than 6% of total bank customers. The author also stated that there are 60% internet customers do not have subject in buying books, CDs or low valued item through online but are reluctant to create online banking transactions. Furthermore, there are differences of internet banking adoption also existed among some countries in Europe. Around 18-25% of populations in Estonia are utilizing internet banking services whereas Italian bank had about no on-line customers by early 2000, banks in Malta initiated internet banking services in December 2002 (Centeno, 2003). Furthermore, there are differences of adoption among banks within the same country. Bughin (2001) stated an example, a leading banks in France have diffusion rate over 11% while minor bank such as the credit commercial de France have translated only 2% of its customers to online for the same period. Internet banking in Turkey In Turkey, there are over 18% of banking customers using e-banking actively (Jamaluddin, Osman, Sukru and Kemal, 2008). Since 1997 internet banking has been recognized as a feasible alternative distribution channel by Turkish commercial banks due to the deregulation in the financial sector, escalation of computer literacy, the rapid diffusion of electronic commerce, strong commitments to reduce operating costs, changing customer demands for innovative financial products and services and create customer convenience (Hakan, 2008). Due to the low cost of attracting customer to utilize internet banking and retaining existing innovation-demanding customers during the past two decades, most of Turkish commercial banks found it irresistible to invest large amounts in online banking although the customer take up of internet banking appeared to be very slow. In addition, the actual number of utilizing e-banking users appeared to be between 1 and 1.2 million (30%) in 2003 although 2million people (50%) were forecasted to utilize e-banking by 2003 (Akinci, 2004; Celik, 2002; Ozkan, 2003). Furthermore, in turkey the numbers of active internet banking accounts are escalating from 150,000 in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2007 and grew annually by 68 percent (Higgs, 2000). In comparison, although this illustrates that internet banking has experienced strong and sustained growth since its inception, Turkey has a lower internet banking penetration rate than that of many European countries. The research on internet banking by individual customers in the country has been required to improve customers understanding of how their particular beliefs or motives affect their utilization of the services. Internet Banking In Australia Internet banking growth continued rapidly in Australia with a 26 % increase in the internet banking customer population to 5.5 million users (approximately 34% of the adult population) going on over the 12 months to May 2005 (ACNielsen, 2005). The report stated there are over 7.2 million consumers accessed 27 millions accounts in 2003 which is an increase of 31% compared to 16.2% in 2002 (MISC, 2004). The report showed that users are more efficient in utilizing Internet banking services and transacting more amounts utilizing fewer sessions. Furthermore, internet banking services are increasingly attracted among users women and 50+ years age group is the highest growing in all category. There are 54% of Australian adults were utilizing telephone banking and an estimated 25% of employed internet banking after a period of strong electronic banking market development between 1997 and 2002. Small and medium banks in USA provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and achieved well in the area of personal internet banking, and website reliability and transactional capabilities while larger banks in Australia offer more variety services than smaller banks. Nevertheless, small and medium sized banks in Australia have found to provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and are successful in offering personal banking services. Internet Banking In Malaysia Since achieving independence in the 1957 banking activities in Malaysia has changed enormously with appearances of new technology application. In the 1980, the first Automated teller Machines (ATMs) was introduced which was be the most visible piece of evidence of the emerging electronic banking in Malaysia. ATM is a computerized telecommunications device that used for transfer funds between checking, balance enquiry, cash withdrawal, savings and credit card accounts, bill payments, making cash and check deposits and making payments to application for initial public offerings in Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. This technology brought the revolution were longer banking hours which unlimited beyond office hours (BNM Annual Reports, 1985-1997). Apart from this, the next changes in this evolutionary process will be the telebanking and PC-banking in the 1990s. In the early 1990 telebanking was introduced in Malaysia as delivery channel for branch financial services via telecommunications devices connected to an automated system of the bank where customers can perform retail banking transactions through using Automated Voice Response (AVR) technology. The functions of telebanking are almost similar to the ATM services except withdrawal and deposit of cash. Telebanking brings convenience, extended access and significant time saving to the customers. The insufficiency of cash withdrawal function in telebanking leads to the poor customer response to telebanking. In the 1990s, ten local commercial banks are offering PC-banking or home banking services. PC-banking is an online banking device which customer can utilize their computers in anywhere anytime for account transactions by subscribing and dialing into the banks intranet proprietary software system. PC-banking can raise speed, decrease cost and enhance flexibility of business transactions which is more suitable among corporate customers. In the half of 1990, the number of customer that utilizes this service still small. This is because they faced some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and poor of product and service quality. In this table indicates that frequency of familiarity and usage of using ATM is the highest and PC-banking is the lowest percentage. ATM can attracted all of banking customer to use this service because it really brings convenience to the customer since it can save time, reduce difficulty, and enhance flexibility of business transaction to customers. There are 80% that not using telebanking because this service cant provide any cash withdrawal function. However, PC-banking also faced lack of attraction from banking customers due to the new banking service that introduced to this country, which most of customer still unable to accept this new internet service. When customer utilize PC-banking, they may face some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and product and service quality. Furthermore, e-banking in Malaysia is become increasingly popular on developments in information technology and telecommunications. In Malaysia internet banking service (IBS) was established in six years ago (The Star, 2005). IBS is a convenience and new physical banking service which is to attain more potential customers as it allows bankers to deliver banking services to a wider segment of customers through electronic and interactive communication channels (Goi, 2005), with 12 domestic banks offering IBS to 4.5million subscribers currently (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2007). So surprisingly internet banking has become one of the popular services with 51 percent out of 8,000 of total respondents once a month. In the beginning, there are 5 Malaysia banks have invested millions of ringgit in online banking but these banks are still functioning as dial up intranet facilities. The online service is still unavailable for customers because of the insufficiency of legal framework and security concerns. The investment may be wasted due to the deficiency of important business understanding to support customer adoption if a bank introduces Internet Banking Services without a clear understanding of factors influencing customer adoption (Goi, 2005; Pires and Aisbett, 2002). In table 1 it illustrates the demographic characteristics of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users among the sample respondents was analyzed. Mean monthly income is the only significant difference appears which it assumed that the internet bank user monthly income is highly than non-internet bank user. It also shows that there is no significant difference between the mean age of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users. These two groups are equal in percentage of graduates and undergraduates in which both of the groups are nearly about 85%. Background of study The purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the consumers perception toward e-banking. Consumer perception is important to bankers because of that banker can only understand and determine what customer actually wants to and how e-banking service shall satisfy them. There are some variables will be discussed which are affecting the growth of e-banking in Malaysia. From the customers perspective, internet banking assists a convenient and effective approach to control personal finances without visiting the bank and from any locations, as it is accessible 24 hours a day and 365 days in a year (Rotchanakitumunai and Speece, 2003). Through this report we will discuss about different countries have different customers perception about e-banking. This research also studies whether service or service quality will influences the trust and willingness of customer for using e-banking. Besides that, we also explore the factors which are taken to assess customer perception toward various application of internet banking. The factors that will be assessed are convenience of account transaction, flexibility, reliability, save time and cost. Internet banking is convenient, no geographical barriers, low cost and isnt bound by operational timings (IAMAIs, 2006). More than 50% of total respondents agreed that e-banking is convenient and flexible ways of banking and it also have a variety of transaction related advantages (Divya and Padhmanabhan, 2008). The purposes of internet banking consist of customer convenience through personalized service, cost containment through decline in operating cost, revenue expansion through better quality and additional non-financial services, and performance enhancement by making the service from any location (Bradley Stewart, 2002; Chau Lai, 2003; Frust et al., 2000; Suganthi Balachandran, 2001). How saving of cost and time affect the p erception of customer toward e-banking are also analyzed. So this research main purpose is to examine the variables of the actual perception of customer toward e-banking. Problem statement This research explores and examines some topics which are important elements that help in consumers perception toward e-banking. Banker should understand the need of customer so that they can improve the insufficient of the services. Banker should find out the way to attract more customers to utilize their services. In line with global trends, most customers are not focusing on this internet application. So, we need to solve this problem regarding the importance of the e-banking among customer in the local area. Customer should learn to use internet banking which can bring conveniences without going to the bank. Then customers will obtain satisfaction with the system when it provides them maximum convenience while bank transaction is occurred. The convenience of internet banking is contributing to changing patterns in cash withdrawal and day to day money management and assisting people gain greater control of their finances (Beer, 2006). On the other hand, there are few factors that lead to this problem occurrence. Firstly, not many people start to use e-banking because they still not trust on the system through internet. They will worry and always have a doubt about whether their money is safe. In addition there are few cases of fraud have been reported in online banking. The hacker wills forgery information by entering person information without the owner knowing and takes out his/her money. Secondly, there are lacks of social contact because internet banking dont have any assistance will be served to customer. It will create difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. They will easily give up since there are many lack of skill problems occurred when utilizing the systems. Besides that, it is difficult to do survey since there are a lot of public are faced limitation of time, because it may take times to explain to the public. Research objective To identify what influence consumers perception toward e-banking To determine the factors that affecting consumer perception toward e-banking To find out how service quality influences internet banking user To identify the reason why customer use internet banking To solve the problem customer face toward internet banking To increase the knowledge of customer toward internet banking To improve the insufficient of the internet banking services To enhance the loyalty and trust between consumer and e-banking Significance of study This research is contributed to give customers to better understand about e-banking. There are many features and characteristics of the e-banking that many people still no realize about it. Through this research, we will interview a numeral of people and will explain about internet banking to give consumer to better understand the services that already provided to help them to ease their life. For example, CIMB offers CIMB Bank AirAsia Savers Account, a paperless account which customer will directly enjoy the convenience of viewing their account statement online without require a passbook (AirAsia Berhad, 2007-2010). Such a good service provided by bank, customer wont know about it if they no utilize internet banking. This study has combined varieties of factors from past research to study consumers perception toward e-banking. Both practitioners and academics can obtain the advantages by to better understand the consumers perception in the value of internet banking services. Furthermore, they can also identify the deficiency of the service in e-banking through this research so that the service would be improved to match customers requirement. Hence, customer can properly understand and adapt the problem that they face as necessary. In Malaysia, Maybank has become the first bank to introduce internet banking services (Maybank2u.com) and an combined web-based cash management portal on June 1, 2000. The online banking services will allow customer to perform bill payment, banking enquiry functions, funds transfer, credit card payment and accounts summary as well as transaction history (Suganthi, Balachandher and Balachandran, 2001). However, the influence of consumers acceptance e-banking in Malaysia seems more challenging because of the deficiency of information and academic in e-banking. Scope of study The scope of study is only concentrate about consumer area and perception toward e-banking. In this study, the research will be focus on MMU student, CIMB banking users and businessman that will regularly using banking service. The reason that we choose MMU student is because MMU student will often using online banking systems to pay tuition fees, transfer fund to their friends, check for their transaction account anywhere anytime. Apart from this they can teach their parent to use these services since it is very convenience and saving time, especially to those parent that very busy with their work. Besides that, we also focus on CIMB bank users which they can provide some information through interviews or questionnaires. Then, we will determine how depth the respondents understand about internet banking and what their comment regarding e-banking. Through this research we will resolve the inadequate and insufficient of service of internet banking. In addition to this, for sure business man they want to utilize something that very fast, time-saving, and can assist to their business. They can conduct most of their business on the internet and make transactions between their businesses without going to the bank. It can guarantee service quality for users conducting business transactions while utilizing IT applications and infrastructure. Through this research we can ask for some suggestion or any dissatisfied regarding internet banking from different view of business man, CIMB bank users and MMU student. Limitation of the study The extension of this study include there are large amounts of people still dont have the internet connection in their home and some dont know how to use e-banking services which will result in lack of internet banking users. There is a need for public knowledge to deal with computers and browsers since there are a lot of public still unable to use the internet applications. Besides that, it will lead to the difficulty of development of e-banking in the country. Customer may prefer visiting the bank branch because there are lacks of social contact regarding e-banking will creates difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. Then it may take some time to learn and get to use to internet banking, as it requires a lot of procedures. If banks server down, customer may not access to the website. Secondly, the limitation that I faced is the difficulty of communication with the respondents when interviewing and collecting data for my research. Some of the people will resist for doing the research survey because they thought I wanted to promote or sell something. The thing that I frequently faced is meeting people who reject to answer any question before I start to talk about my research purpose. Organization of research In chapter 1, the main title is introduction which is a beginning section that states the internet banking among difference countries. Background of study explaining what about of a particular topic is placed. Problem statement is focus on the attention of the problem solving team. Research objective is writing about the purpose of this research. In significant of study, I will shift from the particular to the general, and present the importance of the study from target beneficiaries to the people in the community, to the people in the region and nation. Scope of study is focus on the coverage of areas in this research such as student and businessman. The limitation of study is about the restriction that I facing during doing this research. In addition, Chapter 2 is literature reviews. In this chapter reviews and introduces the previous journals related age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. I will focus on how these independent variables influence consumers adoption of internet banking. There will be an overview of some journals about consumers adoption toward e-banking will be presented which will used to examine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. In Chapter 3 it is about research methodology that including theoretical framework, hypothesis of study, data collection and data analysis. In Theoretical framework, I will suggest the integrative interrelationships among important variables in the research which is includes age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. There are four method are used in data analysis, which are frequency distribution, Pearsons correlation coefficient, cross tabulation and descriptive analysis. Chapter 2: Literature Review Introduction In this chapter 2, I review many journals about this topic in the various area of e-banking. In the 2.2 those journals are investigating about demographic affects the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.3, those journals are investigating the factors that influence the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.4, those journals are investigating about the service or service quality which will influence consumers adoption. In the 2.5, those journals are investigating about influence of trust toward consumers adoption. Demographic According to Kim,Widdows and Yilmazer (2005), age were influencing the attitude of consumers towards internet banking and their ability for learning how to do investment. The younger age groups of consumers are more likely to invest the time to learn to utilize internet banking because this group of consumers can generate more advantages through time saving. Besides that, higher income of consumers will have higher value of time than consumers with lower income, so higher income of the consumer can generate more advantages through adoption of internet banking. More educated consumers may involve fewer training in response to technological change if their general skills facilitate them to be taught the new technology (Bartel and Sicherman, 1998). They also indicated that adoption internet banking of well educated individuals is faster than less educated individuals due to the internet banking, new technology, and warrantees reduction of the time required for money transactions. In Padachi, Rojid and Seetanah (2007) report examined that the younger generation the more they like to utilize the new technological advancements as they are more prefer to adopt e-banking compared to the older generation. Mean age of internet banking users is 45 and 47 for non-internet banking users. Furthermore, the higher of education and income ladder will lead to the greater the probability of customer adopting internet banking. There are 57% of respondent having an education level in the category post graduate and 33% in the category of undergraduate utilizes the service. There are 48% of people using the internet banking that have the income group of Rs 30000 to 49000, which means the higher income earners are more sensible in utilizing internet. In the Jane, Jeanne and Marianne (2004) report explores the discoveries of demographic correlates of technology acceptance have constructed varying results with respect to important relationships to adoption. Men and women show to have dissimilar acceptance rates of specific computer technologies which men will more prefer on adopting technologies application(Gefen and Straub, 1997), but gender appear not to be found to have a direct on adoption of technology in general (Taylor and Todd, 1995; Gefen and Straub, 1997). The research show that the probability of higher income households ($75000 or more) being current users of ABP was 15 points higher than low income households (under $25000) and was more likely to adopt e-banking. However, research examined younger persons are being more likely to adopt which has also linked age and adoption of technologies (Zeithaml and Gilly, 1987; Trocchia and Janda, 2000; Karjaluoto, 2002; Lee, 2002). The research shows that the age of 65 of respond ents were less likely to adopt phone banking and PC banking compared to medium and youngest group. People with married status are more likely to adopt than single males or females because when it comes to bank accounts, married couples may have jointly held accounts. In region variable households living in the northeast were more likely than in the midwest to have adopted or to intend to adopt phone banking or ABP. In the Demographic characteristics of Western Australian users of electronic banking journal published by Catherine, Simone and Katherine (2005) explored that most online banking customers were male while the majority of telephone banking customers were females. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2001 stated that consumers of Western Australia, who are between 18 and 24 years of age, employed, male, have higher levels of education, and higher incomes have been examined to be more likely to use information technology that those are older, unemployed, lower incomes and have lower levels of education. The authors also examined 58.4% of the internet banking users are being in professional, administrative, managerial or para-professional occupations. This is because males in these occupations often utilize technologies such as computers and the internet in the workplace, providing them access to the required hardware and possibly encouraging a preference for online interaction with pr oviders. Filoto, Tanzi and Saita (1997); Jayawardhena and Foley (2000); Thornton and White (2001); Pereira (2002) have found these customers may be on higher incomes due to their more educated and/or highly skilled and therefore they are in occupations that need them to be more practiced at using technology-based service delivery modes. Mitchell (1998) and Tan (1999) stated that education may not be an important aspect for EFTPOS users because transactions are usually performed in retail settings and they involve retail personnel who assist the completion of transactions for consumers. Jayawardhena and Foley (2000), Orenstein (1998) and Thornton and White (2001) argued that online banking consumers are more likely to have higher than average education and they may frequently be students because of their higher exposure to technologies such as internet and computer. Councils on the Ageing (2002) stated that in some studies have recommended that older consumers may be discouraged from the utilization of electronic banking by issues such as limitation of mobility and visibility. In Jun Wu, 2005 report examined that the products and services people purchase varies during the different stages of their lives. The result of demographic age profile in this research shows that the 21 to 29 age group is dominant. Furthermore, consumers that more educated will have more money available to spend because of better education, and this influences their life-styles. Wilkie (1990) stated that it will influences which type of products they purchase, what kind of stores to purchase them in, and what prices they are willing to pay as people achieve higher education. Customers with better educated be likely to have better paying occupations than not well educated customers (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2000) because a persons level of education can affect strongly on their ability to create income and their consumer spending potential. Polatoglu and Ekin (2001) explored that high levels of education improve a consumers ability to process more complicated information and make decision s. Income is a famous demographic variable for segmenting markets due to the income levels affect consumer wants and determines their purchasing power (Lamb, 2000). Purchasing power is influenced by inflation, recession, the international valu Advantages of E-banking Advantages of E-banking Chapter 1: Introduction Introduction Nowadays, Malaysia is a multi sector economy and technology development based on the presence of many technological inventions. Traditional banking act as physical bank and delivery channel which to give customers to place or get their money out of the bank safety deposit boxes, managing checking or current accounts, paying cheques drawn by customers. However, e-banking is one of the technological inventions that give conveniences to customers to manage financial transactions on a secure website performed by retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society. E-banking is also called electronic banking which is the automated delivery of new banking services and products directly to customers through electronic, interactive communication channels. It brings many benefits and capabilities to customer compared to traditional banking. E-banking is fast and convenient way of using computer to easy access to the bank in 24hours. E-banking utilizes the internet system as the delivery channel by which to accomplish banking activity, for example, paying bills, transferring funds, viewing checking and savings account balances, paying mortgages and purchasing financial instruments and certificates of deposits (Haque et al, 2009). Internet banking enable customers to access their general information and accounts of bank products and services through PC or other intelligent device using web browser software on 24 hours a day and 7days a week, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft internet explorer (Mohamad, Hanudin, Suddin, Noren, 2007). The development in information technology have had an tremendous effect in development of more flexible payment methods and more user-friendly banking services in the world of banking (Serkan, Safak, Eda, 2004). There are some features that fall into several categories of internet banking which are transactional, non-transactional, financial institution administration, support of multiple users having varying levels of authority, transaction approval process and wire transfer. In transactional, e-banking act as account and financial transactions, pay bills, wire transfer and apply for loan or new account, investment purchase or sale and others. Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) is an electronic billing which customer can pay bill and receives payment easily, faster, and conveniently over anywhere and any times. Customer perception is interpretation of sensory mind and experienced by customer. The convenience of e-banking are attracted customers and provided no cost charged to customers. Customers have started accepting this internet service and assessing the banks based on their easy to access and convenience. With great confidence toward e-banking, customers are willing uses the internet banking to transfer fund, pay bills, and lot more with a excellent-secured system. It also can establish the relationship between trust and loyalty of customer toward e-banking. Internet banking in USA and Europe The dramatic growth in internet usage has generated a segment of customers with the ability and desire to conduct banking transactions completely online (Mathew and George, 2003). The internet explosion in the late-1990s brings people more convenience with various applications over the web. In the mid-1990s, customers using internet as monetary business transaction over the web as the financial institutions had implemented e-banking. The majority of US-based banks are escalating their investment in technology and hedging their bets while research specifies that a substantial portion of the customer base may always demand the type of personal interaction that can only be provided by individual branch personnel (Alstad, 2002). TowerGroups prediction is highlighted by CRMToday on IT spending by large banks in USA, which the amounts is 24.1 billion in 2004 as compare to 22 billion in 2002. Besides that, many US banks, such as Bank of America and Umpqua Bank are lending from social media channels, offering social networking, pod casting, web casts and other interactive tools. Now competitors can establish an internet bank for as little as $6 million in the USA compared to the cost of setting up a traditional brick and mortar bank (estimated at between $25 and $30 million) (Nathan, 1999). CRMToday (2003a) also stated that without major consumers adoption internet banking would not achieve as profitable as promise although there are increasing in amounts of online banking customers. According to the European Central Bank in 2002 (centeno, 2003), the level of services and its quality differ according to the country and the banks even though all main banks provide internet banking services. Bughin, 2001 investigated that the adoption rate is examined to be averaging only 17% of internet users or less than 6% of total bank customers. The author also stated that there are 60% internet customers do not have subject in buying books, CDs or low valued item through online but are reluctant to create online banking transactions. Furthermore, there are differences of internet banking adoption also existed among some countries in Europe. Around 18-25% of populations in Estonia are utilizing internet banking services whereas Italian bank had about no on-line customers by early 2000, banks in Malta initiated internet banking services in December 2002 (Centeno, 2003). Furthermore, there are differences of adoption among banks within the same country. Bughin (2001) stated an example, a leading banks in France have diffusion rate over 11% while minor bank such as the credit commercial de France have translated only 2% of its customers to online for the same period. Internet banking in Turkey In Turkey, there are over 18% of banking customers using e-banking actively (Jamaluddin, Osman, Sukru and Kemal, 2008). Since 1997 internet banking has been recognized as a feasible alternative distribution channel by Turkish commercial banks due to the deregulation in the financial sector, escalation of computer literacy, the rapid diffusion of electronic commerce, strong commitments to reduce operating costs, changing customer demands for innovative financial products and services and create customer convenience (Hakan, 2008). Due to the low cost of attracting customer to utilize internet banking and retaining existing innovation-demanding customers during the past two decades, most of Turkish commercial banks found it irresistible to invest large amounts in online banking although the customer take up of internet banking appeared to be very slow. In addition, the actual number of utilizing e-banking users appeared to be between 1 and 1.2 million (30%) in 2003 although 2million people (50%) were forecasted to utilize e-banking by 2003 (Akinci, 2004; Celik, 2002; Ozkan, 2003). Furthermore, in turkey the numbers of active internet banking accounts are escalating from 150,000 in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2007 and grew annually by 68 percent (Higgs, 2000). In comparison, although this illustrates that internet banking has experienced strong and sustained growth since its inception, Turkey has a lower internet banking penetration rate than that of many European countries. The research on internet banking by individual customers in the country has been required to improve customers understanding of how their particular beliefs or motives affect their utilization of the services. Internet Banking In Australia Internet banking growth continued rapidly in Australia with a 26 % increase in the internet banking customer population to 5.5 million users (approximately 34% of the adult population) going on over the 12 months to May 2005 (ACNielsen, 2005). The report stated there are over 7.2 million consumers accessed 27 millions accounts in 2003 which is an increase of 31% compared to 16.2% in 2002 (MISC, 2004). The report showed that users are more efficient in utilizing Internet banking services and transacting more amounts utilizing fewer sessions. Furthermore, internet banking services are increasingly attracted among users women and 50+ years age group is the highest growing in all category. There are 54% of Australian adults were utilizing telephone banking and an estimated 25% of employed internet banking after a period of strong electronic banking market development between 1997 and 2002. Small and medium banks in USA provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and achieved well in the area of personal internet banking, and website reliability and transactional capabilities while larger banks in Australia offer more variety services than smaller banks. Nevertheless, small and medium sized banks in Australia have found to provide more user-friendly services than larger banks and are successful in offering personal banking services. Internet Banking In Malaysia Since achieving independence in the 1957 banking activities in Malaysia has changed enormously with appearances of new technology application. In the 1980, the first Automated teller Machines (ATMs) was introduced which was be the most visible piece of evidence of the emerging electronic banking in Malaysia. ATM is a computerized telecommunications device that used for transfer funds between checking, balance enquiry, cash withdrawal, savings and credit card accounts, bill payments, making cash and check deposits and making payments to application for initial public offerings in Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. This technology brought the revolution were longer banking hours which unlimited beyond office hours (BNM Annual Reports, 1985-1997). Apart from this, the next changes in this evolutionary process will be the telebanking and PC-banking in the 1990s. In the early 1990 telebanking was introduced in Malaysia as delivery channel for branch financial services via telecommunications devices connected to an automated system of the bank where customers can perform retail banking transactions through using Automated Voice Response (AVR) technology. The functions of telebanking are almost similar to the ATM services except withdrawal and deposit of cash. Telebanking brings convenience, extended access and significant time saving to the customers. The insufficiency of cash withdrawal function in telebanking leads to the poor customer response to telebanking. In the 1990s, ten local commercial banks are offering PC-banking or home banking services. PC-banking is an online banking device which customer can utilize their computers in anywhere anytime for account transactions by subscribing and dialing into the banks intranet proprietary software system. PC-banking can raise speed, decrease cost and enhance flexibility of business transactions which is more suitable among corporate customers. In the half of 1990, the number of customer that utilizes this service still small. This is because they faced some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and poor of product and service quality. In this table indicates that frequency of familiarity and usage of using ATM is the highest and PC-banking is the lowest percentage. ATM can attracted all of banking customer to use this service because it really brings convenience to the customer since it can save time, reduce difficulty, and enhance flexibility of business transaction to customers. There are 80% that not using telebanking because this service cant provide any cash withdrawal function. However, PC-banking also faced lack of attraction from banking customers due to the new banking service that introduced to this country, which most of customer still unable to accept this new internet service. When customer utilize PC-banking, they may face some problems, such as risk in transacting on the internet, lack of trust and loyalty of customer and product and service quality. Furthermore, e-banking in Malaysia is become increasingly popular on developments in information technology and telecommunications. In Malaysia internet banking service (IBS) was established in six years ago (The Star, 2005). IBS is a convenience and new physical banking service which is to attain more potential customers as it allows bankers to deliver banking services to a wider segment of customers through electronic and interactive communication channels (Goi, 2005), with 12 domestic banks offering IBS to 4.5million subscribers currently (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2007). So surprisingly internet banking has become one of the popular services with 51 percent out of 8,000 of total respondents once a month. In the beginning, there are 5 Malaysia banks have invested millions of ringgit in online banking but these banks are still functioning as dial up intranet facilities. The online service is still unavailable for customers because of the insufficiency of legal framework and security concerns. The investment may be wasted due to the deficiency of important business understanding to support customer adoption if a bank introduces Internet Banking Services without a clear understanding of factors influencing customer adoption (Goi, 2005; Pires and Aisbett, 2002). In table 1 it illustrates the demographic characteristics of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users among the sample respondents was analyzed. Mean monthly income is the only significant difference appears which it assumed that the internet bank user monthly income is highly than non-internet bank user. It also shows that there is no significant difference between the mean age of the internet bank users and the non-internet bank users. These two groups are equal in percentage of graduates and undergraduates in which both of the groups are nearly about 85%. Background of study The purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the consumers perception toward e-banking. Consumer perception is important to bankers because of that banker can only understand and determine what customer actually wants to and how e-banking service shall satisfy them. There are some variables will be discussed which are affecting the growth of e-banking in Malaysia. From the customers perspective, internet banking assists a convenient and effective approach to control personal finances without visiting the bank and from any locations, as it is accessible 24 hours a day and 365 days in a year (Rotchanakitumunai and Speece, 2003). Through this report we will discuss about different countries have different customers perception about e-banking. This research also studies whether service or service quality will influences the trust and willingness of customer for using e-banking. Besides that, we also explore the factors which are taken to assess customer perception toward various application of internet banking. The factors that will be assessed are convenience of account transaction, flexibility, reliability, save time and cost. Internet banking is convenient, no geographical barriers, low cost and isnt bound by operational timings (IAMAIs, 2006). More than 50% of total respondents agreed that e-banking is convenient and flexible ways of banking and it also have a variety of transaction related advantages (Divya and Padhmanabhan, 2008). The purposes of internet banking consist of customer convenience through personalized service, cost containment through decline in operating cost, revenue expansion through better quality and additional non-financial services, and performance enhancement by making the service from any location (Bradley Stewart, 2002; Chau Lai, 2003; Frust et al., 2000; Suganthi Balachandran, 2001). How saving of cost and time affect the p erception of customer toward e-banking are also analyzed. So this research main purpose is to examine the variables of the actual perception of customer toward e-banking. Problem statement This research explores and examines some topics which are important elements that help in consumers perception toward e-banking. Banker should understand the need of customer so that they can improve the insufficient of the services. Banker should find out the way to attract more customers to utilize their services. In line with global trends, most customers are not focusing on this internet application. So, we need to solve this problem regarding the importance of the e-banking among customer in the local area. Customer should learn to use internet banking which can bring conveniences without going to the bank. Then customers will obtain satisfaction with the system when it provides them maximum convenience while bank transaction is occurred. The convenience of internet banking is contributing to changing patterns in cash withdrawal and day to day money management and assisting people gain greater control of their finances (Beer, 2006). On the other hand, there are few factors that lead to this problem occurrence. Firstly, not many people start to use e-banking because they still not trust on the system through internet. They will worry and always have a doubt about whether their money is safe. In addition there are few cases of fraud have been reported in online banking. The hacker wills forgery information by entering person information without the owner knowing and takes out his/her money. Secondly, there are lacks of social contact because internet banking dont have any assistance will be served to customer. It will create difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. They will easily give up since there are many lack of skill problems occurred when utilizing the systems. Besides that, it is difficult to do survey since there are a lot of public are faced limitation of time, because it may take times to explain to the public. Research objective To identify what influence consumers perception toward e-banking To determine the factors that affecting consumer perception toward e-banking To find out how service quality influences internet banking user To identify the reason why customer use internet banking To solve the problem customer face toward internet banking To increase the knowledge of customer toward internet banking To improve the insufficient of the internet banking services To enhance the loyalty and trust between consumer and e-banking Significance of study This research is contributed to give customers to better understand about e-banking. There are many features and characteristics of the e-banking that many people still no realize about it. Through this research, we will interview a numeral of people and will explain about internet banking to give consumer to better understand the services that already provided to help them to ease their life. For example, CIMB offers CIMB Bank AirAsia Savers Account, a paperless account which customer will directly enjoy the convenience of viewing their account statement online without require a passbook (AirAsia Berhad, 2007-2010). Such a good service provided by bank, customer wont know about it if they no utilize internet banking. This study has combined varieties of factors from past research to study consumers perception toward e-banking. Both practitioners and academics can obtain the advantages by to better understand the consumers perception in the value of internet banking services. Furthermore, they can also identify the deficiency of the service in e-banking through this research so that the service would be improved to match customers requirement. Hence, customer can properly understand and adapt the problem that they face as necessary. In Malaysia, Maybank has become the first bank to introduce internet banking services (Maybank2u.com) and an combined web-based cash management portal on June 1, 2000. The online banking services will allow customer to perform bill payment, banking enquiry functions, funds transfer, credit card payment and accounts summary as well as transaction history (Suganthi, Balachandher and Balachandran, 2001). However, the influence of consumers acceptance e-banking in Malaysia seems more challenging because of the deficiency of information and academic in e-banking. Scope of study The scope of study is only concentrate about consumer area and perception toward e-banking. In this study, the research will be focus on MMU student, CIMB banking users and businessman that will regularly using banking service. The reason that we choose MMU student is because MMU student will often using online banking systems to pay tuition fees, transfer fund to their friends, check for their transaction account anywhere anytime. Apart from this they can teach their parent to use these services since it is very convenience and saving time, especially to those parent that very busy with their work. Besides that, we also focus on CIMB bank users which they can provide some information through interviews or questionnaires. Then, we will determine how depth the respondents understand about internet banking and what their comment regarding e-banking. Through this research we will resolve the inadequate and insufficient of service of internet banking. In addition to this, for sure business man they want to utilize something that very fast, time-saving, and can assist to their business. They can conduct most of their business on the internet and make transactions between their businesses without going to the bank. It can guarantee service quality for users conducting business transactions while utilizing IT applications and infrastructure. Through this research we can ask for some suggestion or any dissatisfied regarding internet banking from different view of business man, CIMB bank users and MMU student. Limitation of the study The extension of this study include there are large amounts of people still dont have the internet connection in their home and some dont know how to use e-banking services which will result in lack of internet banking users. There is a need for public knowledge to deal with computers and browsers since there are a lot of public still unable to use the internet applications. Besides that, it will lead to the difficulty of development of e-banking in the country. Customer may prefer visiting the bank branch because there are lacks of social contact regarding e-banking will creates difficulty to the customer since in the bank there will be banker which will helps and assists customer needs. Then it may take some time to learn and get to use to internet banking, as it requires a lot of procedures. If banks server down, customer may not access to the website. Secondly, the limitation that I faced is the difficulty of communication with the respondents when interviewing and collecting data for my research. Some of the people will resist for doing the research survey because they thought I wanted to promote or sell something. The thing that I frequently faced is meeting people who reject to answer any question before I start to talk about my research purpose. Organization of research In chapter 1, the main title is introduction which is a beginning section that states the internet banking among difference countries. Background of study explaining what about of a particular topic is placed. Problem statement is focus on the attention of the problem solving team. Research objective is writing about the purpose of this research. In significant of study, I will shift from the particular to the general, and present the importance of the study from target beneficiaries to the people in the community, to the people in the region and nation. Scope of study is focus on the coverage of areas in this research such as student and businessman. The limitation of study is about the restriction that I facing during doing this research. In addition, Chapter 2 is literature reviews. In this chapter reviews and introduces the previous journals related age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. I will focus on how these independent variables influence consumers adoption of internet banking. There will be an overview of some journals about consumers adoption toward e-banking will be presented which will used to examine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. In Chapter 3 it is about research methodology that including theoretical framework, hypothesis of study, data collection and data analysis. In Theoretical framework, I will suggest the integrative interrelationships among important variables in the research which is includes age, income, education, gender, convenience, perceived ease of use, reliability, saving time and cost, service or service quality and trust. There are four method are used in data analysis, which are frequency distribution, Pearsons correlation coefficient, cross tabulation and descriptive analysis. Chapter 2: Literature Review Introduction In this chapter 2, I review many journals about this topic in the various area of e-banking. In the 2.2 those journals are investigating about demographic affects the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.3, those journals are investigating the factors that influence the consumers adoption toward e-banking. In the 2.4, those journals are investigating about the service or service quality which will influence consumers adoption. In the 2.5, those journals are investigating about influence of trust toward consumers adoption. Demographic According to Kim,Widdows and Yilmazer (2005), age were influencing the attitude of consumers towards internet banking and their ability for learning how to do investment. The younger age groups of consumers are more likely to invest the time to learn to utilize internet banking because this group of consumers can generate more advantages through time saving. Besides that, higher income of consumers will have higher value of time than consumers with lower income, so higher income of the consumer can generate more advantages through adoption of internet banking. More educated consumers may involve fewer training in response to technological change if their general skills facilitate them to be taught the new technology (Bartel and Sicherman, 1998). They also indicated that adoption internet banking of well educated individuals is faster than less educated individuals due to the internet banking, new technology, and warrantees reduction of the time required for money transactions. In Padachi, Rojid and Seetanah (2007) report examined that the younger generation the more they like to utilize the new technological advancements as they are more prefer to adopt e-banking compared to the older generation. Mean age of internet banking users is 45 and 47 for non-internet banking users. Furthermore, the higher of education and income ladder will lead to the greater the probability of customer adopting internet banking. There are 57% of respondent having an education level in the category post graduate and 33% in the category of undergraduate utilizes the service. There are 48% of people using the internet banking that have the income group of Rs 30000 to 49000, which means the higher income earners are more sensible in utilizing internet. In the Jane, Jeanne and Marianne (2004) report explores the discoveries of demographic correlates of technology acceptance have constructed varying results with respect to important relationships to adoption. Men and women show to have dissimilar acceptance rates of specific computer technologies which men will more prefer on adopting technologies application(Gefen and Straub, 1997), but gender appear not to be found to have a direct on adoption of technology in general (Taylor and Todd, 1995; Gefen and Straub, 1997). The research show that the probability of higher income households ($75000 or more) being current users of ABP was 15 points higher than low income households (under $25000) and was more likely to adopt e-banking. However, research examined younger persons are being more likely to adopt which has also linked age and adoption of technologies (Zeithaml and Gilly, 1987; Trocchia and Janda, 2000; Karjaluoto, 2002; Lee, 2002). The research shows that the age of 65 of respond ents were less likely to adopt phone banking and PC banking compared to medium and youngest group. People with married status are more likely to adopt than single males or females because when it comes to bank accounts, married couples may have jointly held accounts. In region variable households living in the northeast were more likely than in the midwest to have adopted or to intend to adopt phone banking or ABP. In the Demographic characteristics of Western Australian users of electronic banking journal published by Catherine, Simone and Katherine (2005) explored that most online banking customers were male while the majority of telephone banking customers were females. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2001 stated that consumers of Western Australia, who are between 18 and 24 years of age, employed, male, have higher levels of education, and higher incomes have been examined to be more likely to use information technology that those are older, unemployed, lower incomes and have lower levels of education. The authors also examined 58.4% of the internet banking users are being in professional, administrative, managerial or para-professional occupations. This is because males in these occupations often utilize technologies such as computers and the internet in the workplace, providing them access to the required hardware and possibly encouraging a preference for online interaction with pr oviders. Filoto, Tanzi and Saita (1997); Jayawardhena and Foley (2000); Thornton and White (2001); Pereira (2002) have found these customers may be on higher incomes due to their more educated and/or highly skilled and therefore they are in occupations that need them to be more practiced at using technology-based service delivery modes. Mitchell (1998) and Tan (1999) stated that education may not be an important aspect for EFTPOS users because transactions are usually performed in retail settings and they involve retail personnel who assist the completion of transactions for consumers. Jayawardhena and Foley (2000), Orenstein (1998) and Thornton and White (2001) argued that online banking consumers are more likely to have higher than average education and they may frequently be students because of their higher exposure to technologies such as internet and computer. Councils on the Ageing (2002) stated that in some studies have recommended that older consumers may be discouraged from the utilization of electronic banking by issues such as limitation of mobility and visibility. In Jun Wu, 2005 report examined that the products and services people purchase varies during the different stages of their lives. The result of demographic age profile in this research shows that the 21 to 29 age group is dominant. Furthermore, consumers that more educated will have more money available to spend because of better education, and this influences their life-styles. Wilkie (1990) stated that it will influences which type of products they purchase, what kind of stores to purchase them in, and what prices they are willing to pay as people achieve higher education. Customers with better educated be likely to have better paying occupations than not well educated customers (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2000) because a persons level of education can affect strongly on their ability to create income and their consumer spending potential. Polatoglu and Ekin (2001) explored that high levels of education improve a consumers ability to process more complicated information and make decision s. Income is a famous demographic variable for segmenting markets due to the income levels affect consumer wants and determines their purchasing power (Lamb, 2000). Purchasing power is influenced by inflation, recession, the international valu

Harry Potter :: essays research papers

During this day and time there are many cool fads that catch on quite quickly and leave quickly as well. Lately there has been one fad that has caught on and it doesn’t seem as if it is going to leave anytime soon. This fad has caused much chaos and controversy throughout America. This fad is called Harry Potter. It seems as if everyone has his or her own opinion on it. Harry Potter started out being a book by J. K. Rowling, intended to entertain children. But somehow it has gotten dragged through the mud and made into a bigger deal than it was until the name Harry Potter is commonly heard on everyday news. The media and many adults are claiming that these books and movie are evil. Robert McGee, associate pastor of the First Baptist church of Merritt Island of CA Says â€Å"I’ve read the Potter books and they are wonderfully written but were not talking about the Smurfs here. Children are leaning the elements of witchcraft in the context of being told it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.† Many of the spells that are used in the movie and books are real spells from the religion Wicca from Great Britain. Roger Coleman, a Wiccan minister of the Church of Iron Oak in Palm Bay, said he found very similarity between his religion and the witchcraft in the series. This is believed to bring children to want to try witchcraft. A video was by The First Baptist church of Merritt Island has started a Potter movie of their own. The one-hour video has been shown to hundreds of people in 11 churches across Brevard County CA. The truth, according to the video, is that â€Å"children as young as kindergarten are being introduced to human sacrifice, and the sucking of blood from dead animals.† On the other hand though many people believe that the books are harmless and are meant to make children use their imagination. Kristin Kendall, an 11-year-old from Port St. John said, â€Å"most kids can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I’ve read all four books, they are all pretty good. I like the mythical creatures like the unicorn.† Judith Krug ALA spokeswoman said the Potter books are Challenged for two main reasons. â€Å"The complaints are based on the feeling that evil pervades the works and the belief that if young people read these books they’ll forget everything their parents taught them and immediately become witches and warlocks.

Of mice and men Essay

Crooks is an educated black cripple who tends horses on the ranch. He has been prey of oppressive violence and prejudice and has retired behind an exterior of detachment and reserve, his natural personality deadened and suppressed by years of hostility. He has known better times and, unlike most southern blacks at that time, was brought up on a small holding run by his father. This is the type of home longed for by Lennie, George and Candy and, despite his initial cynicism, Crooks also becomes caught up in their dream of escape. Crook’s automatic rejection of friendship or companionship has more to do with the torture of his loneliness than with anything else. Once encouraged to do so, he reveals that he has an intelligent awareness of life. He has thought hard during his long hours of solitude. His new found confidence and self-respect encourage him to try to counter the intrusion of Curley’s wife, but he is humiliated by her vicious threats. His new optimism is finally defeated by George’s dismissive attitude to the suggestion that he might participate in the running of the â€Å"Dream Farm†. Crooks loses out on a lot of things because he is not part of the white community. He loses out mainly on friendship, which causes Crooks to feel isolate and lonely throughout the novel. Crooks is a very lonely man and so he reads a lot, if he was to mix with the white community he would be out enjoying himself. He has no one to talk to and is segregated from the rest of the ranch community having his own room in the barn. I think if Crooks were to have a choice he would enjoy mixing with the white men but at the first sign of trouble he would return to the protectiveness of how own room in the barn. Crooks loses out mainly on respect from the ranch community because he is willing to do anything in which he is told to do. He still receives no praise or respect form the ranch community. I think Crooks has drawn himself into a false sense of security, he has hidden himself form the rest of the world, afraid to show his true personality. Crooks I’m sure is a kind and generous person but because of the years of torment and segregation he is forced to remain hospitable to the white community. Crooks is a smart and educated person who is not able to show his thoughts and emotions to anyone. He does not complain about the insults and racial remarks which Curley’s wife makes because he knows if he does his new found confidence will be shattered with an extreme racial remark. Crooks although he loses out greatly also gains a lot from being segregated from the rest. He keeps himself to himself giving him plenty of time to think things through. I think Crooks imagines that if he were to mix with the white community he would only receive abuse. An example of this was when Crooks got into a fight when he was allowed into the ranch at Christmas. This is also why Crooks gains a lot form not being apart of the white community ie not being there for them to abuse or to make racial remarks towards. Nicholas Toland 1 Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE John Steinbeck section.

How accurate is it to say that the causes of the demonstrations outside the Holy Cross Primary School in August 2001 date back to 1968?

On September 3rd 2001 the students of Holy Cross Primary School were due to return back to school for the new term, however this was made difficult due to the Protestant protesters who had gathered outside of the school and the surrounding area to show their objection to the Catholic children and their parents walking down what was regarded to be a Protestant street on their way to school. These riots made it extremely difficult for the young Catholic girls to get to and from school every morning and afternoon; their parents faced a choice, to either take their children through the barricades hastily erected by the police and army, therefore showing the Protestants that they would not back down, or to take their children to school via the back entrance, which avoided the riots, but meant that the children and their parents had to walk a much longer, and more difficult route. The Catholic parents also felt that this meant that the Protestants were getting their way, and so many of the parents chose to take their children through the police barricades, even though this meant subjecting the young girls to the violence and abuse that the Protestant rioters hurled at them. These riots were not unprovoked. Tension had been growing in the surrounding area for some time and the events outside of Holy Cross were a result of the growing hostility that was felt between the two sides. Both the Protestants and the Catholics felt threatened by each other, and neither wanted to show any weakness. There were a number of short term causes for what happened outside of Holy Cross. The first of these was the fact that there were the two separate religious communities, the Protestants and the Catholics, living in such close proximity to each other, both communities felt threatened by each other, believing that the other community was taking liberties and trying to drive their community out of the area. Another of these short term causes was the fact that there was a very high rate of unemployment in the area, this meant that there were a lot of unemployed adult men with nothing to do all day, therefore they had too much time on their hands to object to everything that the other community did, and also many of them would purposefully try and antagonise the other side so that they could release some of their pent up energy and anger. One of the main short term causes however was the way in which the younger generations of both faiths were being brought up. Both Protestant and Catholic communities kept their children separated from children of the other religion, both by sending them to single faith schools such as Holy Cross, where only Catholic children attended, and by living in small communities of predominantly one religion families. Therefore these children did not get to know each other or become friends and so there was nothing stopping them from taking on their parents prejudices and political beliefs. However, as I mentioned earlier the events outside of Holy Cross were not only caused by short term causes, but long term causes as well. In 1171 the king of England Henry II visited Ireland and decided to name himself the ‘Lord of Ireland', this change made very little difference to the ruling of Ireland, and by 1500 English kings had little or no power over any of Ireland except a small area surrounding Dublin known at The Pale. This all changed in the 16th century when the English rulers started to take more of an interest in Ireland. As Ireland was still inhabited mainly by Catholics the English monarchs feared that it could be used as a useful base for invasion from surrounding Catholic countries such as France and Spain because by 1560 England was an entirely Protestant country and this was disliked by Catholic European countries. To take more control of Ireland Henry VIII of England changed his title from ‘Lord of Ireland' to ‘King of Ireland' and told Irish nobles they were to be his subjects. The Irish did not take this well, and in Elizabeth I's rule the provinces of Ulster and Munster rebelled. Elizabeth sent in her army to deal with the rebellion. In the 17th century the English Monarchy realised that the best way to gain control over Ireland was not by force, but by land. The main source of power in Ireland was held by Irish landowners. The English monarchy set about taking land from the rich Catholic nobles in Ireland and giving their land to English Protestants, these were known as plantations, and the aim of them was to take control over Ireland by giving the land to people who were loyal to the king. The main plantations were in Ulster which is now where the main conflict between Catholics and Protestants takes place. This created both economic and social reasons for what would later become the troubles in Northern Ireland and so for what happened outside Holy Cross Primary School. The economic reason was that taking a great deal of land off of people left them homeless, without a means of income and also introduced a lot more people into the communities and so therefore the communities had to deal with more people to support. The social reason was that taking the land off of the Catholics and giving it to the Protestants caused a great deal of resentment towards the Protestants. However, even though the Protestants now held a large proportion of the land in Ireland they did not have complete control, and when Catholic king James II became king of England in 1685. King James II lost his throne in 1688 but soon returned to Ireland with French troops intending to invade England. He was not successful and Protestant King William of Orange defeated James in the battle of the Boyne on the 1st of July 1690. This is a social reason for the prolonged fighting in Northern Ireland because the Protestants still celebrate their victory at the Battle of the Boyne by organising Orange Marches, these only increase the tension between the two communities and often end in violence. The Protestant victory now meant that they had complete control over Ireland and the Catholics, and they intended to keep this control, the Irish parliament introduced penal laws, which were in place to keep the Catholics out of power. These laws stated that Catholics could not own large amounts of land, be properly educated, become a member of parliament or own weapons. This therefore made it extremely hard, if not impossible for a Catholic to gain any power whatsoever. I think that this is both a religious and a political reason for the troubles in Northern Ireland because the Catholics were being discriminated against simply because of their religion and they were not able to gain any political power to help themselves to gain equal rights. Towards the end of the 18th century many of the Catholics in Ireland decided that it was time to do something about the British rule over Ireland. They called themselves Nationalists because they wanted Ireland to become a separate nation from Britain. They fight between the Catholic nationalists and the Protestant unionists, who want to keep Ireland part of Britain, is the fight which still continues today in Northern Ireland and cause the events outside of Holy Cross Primary School. During the 18th and 19th centuries the Catholic nationalist attempted 3 revolutions, all of which failed. Ireland was still controlled by Protestants. In 1905 a nationalist political party was set up by Catholics, it was named Sinn Fein. With the start of nationalists having a voice in parliament changes slowly started to come around. The political nationalist were not demanding that Ireland became a separate state from Britain, only that it had its own government which would be fair to both Protestants and Catholics. In 1918 the Irish people, both Protestant and Catholic voted on the future of Ireland, the outcome was that Ireland would have Home rule but stay part of the British empire. However, this did not please the predominantly Protestant province of Ulster where the majority of inhabitants were unionists and wanted Ireland to be entirely ruled by Britain. In 1921 a partition treaty was signed, this excluded Ulster the home rule, meaning that it was still ruled by Britain. However, this created a social problem in Northern Ireland because although Northern Ireland was mainly inhabited by Protestant thousands of Catholics were now left stranded in a country where they were the minority and very unfairly treated and most were unable to move. The Stormont Parliament was set up, this was intended to look after both Catholics and Protestants but was not successful in this because it was entirely controlled by Protestants, who did not want to give equal rights to Catholics in fear of the Catholics taking control. This meant that they gave Catholics poor council housing, few jobs and unfair treatment towards all Catholics, causing political, economic, and social problems. These past events show how the rivalry between the Catholics and the Protestants developed and grew. These events were long term reasons for what happened outside of Holy Cross Primary School because if it were not for the tension between the two religions and the segregation of Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland the short term events, such as what happened in 1968, would not have happened. In 1968 Catholics in Northern Ireland started peaceful marches to try and gain themselves equal rights. These peaceful marches only ever ended in violence, because the Protestants felt very threatened by the Catholics trying to regain equality. The Protestants did not want to give Catholics equal rights because they did not want to relinquish their control over Northern Ireland. The fighting which was started by the 1968 Catholic demonstrations continued for many years, calling a halt to any prospect of peace talks between the two religious groups. The fighting caused the resignation of the Protestant Prime minister Terence O'Neill, who had been so keen to install peace and equality into Northern Ireland. By August 1969 the British army had been sent in to try and control the fighting. This was intended to be a temporary measure, but the army have never left, and are still there today. At last the British Government managed to get unionist leaders of Northern Ireland to make changes in their policies to attempt to make things fairer to the Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. The things that were changed were: Elections, elections at the time were extremely biased in the Protestants favour as gerrymandering took place very often. Housing, The council housing had been unfairly given out by local Protestant councils and this was an attempt to give Catholics decent housing. Unemployment, the government promised to reduce the levels of unemployment in Northern Ireland, these promises were never fulfilled. Police, the police force in Northern Ireland was an entirely Protestant armed force, which naturally was biased against the Catholics. By 1970 Northern Ireland was in crisis, The British government had decided to suspend the Stormont government and take direct rule, meaning that Northern Ireland affairs were controlled directly from Westminster. This had little effect however as paramilitary groups started to take hold over the country. A new strand of the IRA had emerged calling themselves the provisional IRA, they took control of many of the Catholic areas. They were determined to rid Northern Ireland of British control, and would do so by force. However the Protestant paramilitary units, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, Ulster Defence Army and the Ulster Volunteers Force were equally as determined to keep Northern Ireland linked directly to Britain. Northern Ireland was in chaos, the fighting between Catholics and Protestants continued. I believe that this fighting is directly linked to the riots outside Holy Cross in 2001, such recent fighting meant that both sides were still angry and threatened by one another. The long term causes of the events outside Holy Cross demonstrate how the two religious sides became rivals, the introducing of Protestant plantations and the Protestants slowly gaining control over Ireland and the Catholics are what fuelled the fighting between the two communities for hundreds of years. However, I do not believe that the fighting in Northern Ireland, and in particular the rioting that occurred outside Holy Cross Primary School in 2001 was entirely about religious beliefs, I feel that the fighting was caused by the political situation in Northern Ireland, the fact that the minority Catholic group want more control over what happens in Northern Ireland and that the Protestants do not want to give up their level of control, which is why they did not want to let the Catholic families walk freely down their streets to get to Holy Cross Primary School. I think that the riots outside of Holy Cross where not entirely just about children walking down a street inhabited by a different religious community to get to school but about the fear the two communities have installed in each other during the short term causes such as the fighting. Both sides are scared that they will be driven out by the other. In conclusion I think that it is not accurate to say that the causes of the demonstrations outside the Holy Cross Primary School in August 2001 date back to 1968 because the causes of the conflict in Northern Ireland dates back many centuries. I believe that It would be correct to say that the troubles from 1968 onwards are a major factor in causing the demonstrations outside Holy Cross Primary School in August 2001 but that the actual cause dates back a lot further than 1968.