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  Publications | Banker's Journal Malaysia |  Paper Synopsis | Issue 116

 

December 2002
(Issue No. 116)

 

Synopsis

Role of Money and Monetary Stability in Malaysia
M Zulkhibri A Majid and Dr Azali Mohame

The main findings of this paper have shown that there exists a stable long-run demand for money function for M3 in Malaysia during the period 1989?999 despite the large capital inflows and the presence of market control in 1994 and 1998. The results also indicate the significant role of exchange rate in the long run in determining the manner of money demand. This suggests that the presence of capital control does affect the demand for Malaysian currency in the short run but not in the long run. Therefore, M3 can be used as an intermediate target in achieving monetary stability.

Economic Effect of Capital Controls- A Malaysian Evidence
Andrej K. Karpinski and Victor Fang

Capital controls discouraging particular types of capital flows may take different forms. They can be administrative (banning of cross-border capital transactions), or they can be market based (capital gains or withholding taxes or levies). The paper looks at the economic impact of Malaysia's capital controls instituted in September 1998 to stem the flow of funds out of the country. The measures were taken in response to confidence crisis which had its roots in the summer of 1996 when the combination of internal macroeconomic and external factors led to an attack on Thai baht and the subsequent removal of its peg to US dollar. The evidence collected during the Malaysian crisis suggests that capital controls may be positive given the right set of conditions.

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Money Velocity, Volatility and Policy - An Empirical Study Based on The Garch Modelling
Dr Tan Hui Boon and Law Siong Hook

Monetary policy is frequently employed by Bank Negara Malaysia to achieve strong economic performance over time. The rapid growth of the Malaysian economy and the innovations in its financial system during the 1990s had caused considerable instability in the relationship between the nominal GDP and monetary aggregate. The money velocity, as a ratio of nominal GDP to the monetary aggregate, had declined and marked the departure from its historical patterns, casting doubt on the reliability of the monetary aggregate in predicting the real economic activity and price stability. As a consequence, Bank Negara shifted its monetary policy strategy from monetary targeting to interest rate targeting in the mid-1990s.

The empirical results of this study support the act by Bank Negara, as the velocity of money is significantly influence by the changes in the interest rate and real GDP. A decrease in the interest rate tends to increase the velocity of money, which in turn increases the real GDP. The effect is magnified by the feedback causality between the money velocity and real GDP. The increase in the real GDP will further increase the velocity of money, and the causal effect running between these variables continue in a cycle.

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Customer Satisfaction of Commercial Banks: A Malaysian Case Study
Dr Balachandher Krishnan Guru, Dr Avvari Mohan & Santha Vaithilingam

Bank Negara Malaysia has taken the decision to consolidate the banking system in an effort to create strong domestic banking groups, which will be well positioned to meet the demands of the customers in an increasingly competitive banking environment. It is worth noting at this point that consolidation of the domestic banking system alone is not sufficient to ensure the success of the commercial banks in the face of foreign competition once Malaysia opens her doors for foreign banks participation. To this extent, customer satisfaction has been increasingly considered to be a basic determinant of business success.

This study is undertaken to determine some of the factors that contribute towards the satisfaction of commercial bank customers in Malaysia. To this extent, the objective of this study is two-fold, namely to determine the factors which influence the satisfaction of local commercial bank customers and to examine the association between customer satisfaction and bank profitability

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Optimal Teller Windows In The Banking Industry
Dr Salleh Yahya, Dr Murali Sambasivan and Seow Hsin Voon

The Queuing Theory has many applications in the service and manufacturing industries. This paper discusses its application in banking and specifically addresses the problem of optimum number of teller windows to be opened. This paper assumes that the arrival rate of customers follows the Poison distribution and the service time follow the Exponential distribution. This assumption has been verified for a sample bank in Malaysia. Solutions are offered, based on two approaches: (1) by considering only the "allowable" waiting time, and (2) through a cost model. The cost model includes two cost factors, namely the cost of opening an additional counter and the cost of waiting time of the customer in the system. The authors believe that the cost model can provide better results if the cost parameters are known with a fair degree of accuracy.

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Influence Of Heuristics In Bank Managers' Lending Decisions To Small Business
Dr Rosli Mahmood

This paper attempts to discuss the influence of heuristics or intuition in the bank managers?lending decisions to small businesses and its implications on the availability of funds to the small and medium-sized enterprises in Malaysia. Bank managers operate under conditions of uncertainty and asymmetry of information when lending to small businesses. These often lead them to commit errors in their decisions such as turning down a good business proposition which subsequently turns out to be a success or accepting a proposition which turns out to be a business failure. As a consequence, these bank managers tend to use heuristics or intuition in their lending decisions. Although heuristic is a form of managerial skill that requires years of training and experience, it could also lead to serious and systematic errors when applied to situations in which they are inappropriate. Bank managers should therefore be educated on the thorough understanding of heuristics so that they are not bias in their decisions regarding loan applications from small businesses.

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Successful International Issuance Major Legal and Documentary Aspects of International Debt and Capital Markets
Paul Mon

The purpose of this article is to give a brief overview of the important factors which come into play when an issuer is contemplating an issue of debt securities in the international capital markets. Some of these factors are within the control of the issuer itself (for example, the contractual terms of the issue and the efficacy of the due diligence process) whereas others (such as withholding tax and exchange control) reflect the regulatory regime of the issuer's own jurisdiction. The author does not presume to understand the detailed workings of Malaysian law and regulation and therefore the thoughts given are of necessity general in their nature but have been compiled as a result of many years? experience advising underwriters and issuers in a number of countries in Asia and elsewhere.

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