2002 (Issue No. 124) The Eight Suns of Marketing Financial Services David Freemantle   The Business of Self-Service Banking David Cavell   Effect of Central Bank's Bank Merger Announcements on Bank Share Returns Fred Tham and Dr Tan Hui Boon   Asymmetric Volatility Spillovers in the Malaysian Stock Exchange: Further Evidence from EGARCH Models Dr Tan Juat Hong   Satisfaction Judgements in the Presence of Higher Order Ting Ding Hooi   Corporate Social Disclosure by Financial Institutions in Malaysia: A Preliminary Study Fathilatul Zakimi Abdul Hamid, Mohamad Sharofi Ismail, Azhar Abdul Rahman   Legal Commentaries     Synopsis The Eight Suns of Marketing Financial Services by David Freemantle As an outsider ‘looking in?the UK-based author, a frequent visitor to Asia, is in a good position to assess the standards of customer service in Asia and advise how these can be improved. This is reflected in his book ‘The Eight Suns of Asian Service? which focuses on the eight key factors necessary to deliver outstanding service in Asia. In doing so he sets an important benchmark for a distinctive and unique brand of Asian service. In this article, he offers his assessment of financial services by banks in Malaysia, and discusses the fundamental issues that need to be addressed. The Business of Self-Service Banking by David Cavell In this paper, the writer looks at the global self-service ‘estate? giving a brief account of the growing use of automation towards self-service banking. He also highlights the latest trends in ATM operations such as raising quality, outsourcing network management, increasing functionality, closer monitoring and maintenance. He proposes six key action points which banks ought to adopt to become market leaders in self-service banking, namely, (1) gradual elimination of counters or teller lines, (2) offering high quality on-line customer access, (3) dedicating resources to online marketing activities, 4) making available remotely-located ‘out of hours?staff, ( 5) exploiting the alliance between self-service activity and plastic cards, and 6) availing equal access to all customers. Top Effect of Central Bank's Bank Merger Announcements on Bank Share Returns by Fred Tham and Dr Tan Hui Boon This study investigates the effect of Bank Negara Malaysia's announcements of a merger and acquisition programme for Malaysia domestic banking institutions on "anchor banks" share returns. The study assesses whether an investor can make short-term profits and/or long-term profits by buying on three different announcement days. The empirical results indicate that (1) the announcements have effects on the anchor-bank share prices and returns; (2) investors cannot make short-term abnormal profits by buying after the announcements, even at their earliest; (3) investors cannot make long-term abnormal profits by buying on day +1 of the announcement and holding for a long term; (4) the Malaysian market is not totally efficient ?astute investors can ‘beat?the market if they have early access to information; and (5) there is no clear linkage between the announcements and the market value of the anchor banks. Top Asymmetric Volatility Spillovers in the Malaysian Stock Exchange: Further Evidence from EGARCH Models by Dr Tan Juat Hong The paper examines the interdependencies between Malaysian stock price movements and volatility to changes in selected five foreign exchange rates amidst the selective capital controls policy and ringgit-US dollar pegging. The study reveals that Malaysian stock price movements are invariant to external shocks arising from changes in foreign exchange rates, except for the Singapore dollar and sterling pound. The evidence supports the hypothesis of mean-reverting stock prices. For asymmetric volatility spillovers, positive shocks (bad news) tend to exert stronger influence than negative shocks (good news) arising from changes in Thai baht and Singapore dollar. However, positive shocks due to changes in the Japanese yen tend to have a lower impact on the Malaysian stock price volatility than negative shocks. The writer found that changes in the Korean won and sterling pound do not posit any effect on the stock price volatility. Top Satisfaction Judgements in the Presence of Higher Order by Ting Ding Hooi In this study, the writer focuses on the satisfaction judgements of bank customers in Malaysia. The writer probes into the simple slope and nature of the satisfaction and word-of-mouth referral functions, where satisfaction is the independent variable and word-of-mouth referral is the dependent variable. The study findings suggest that the satisfaction curve should be a U-shape. In addition, the inclusion of ownership as the moderator shows that local bank-ownership moderates the relationship between satisfaction and word-of-mouth referral. The Hierarchical Moderator Regression was utilised to test the moderating effect Top Corporate Social Disclosure by Financial Institutions in Malaysia: A Preliminary Study by Fathilatul Zakimi Abdul Hamid, Mohamad Sharofi Ismail, Azhar Abdul Rahman This research paper explores the extent of social disclosure by banking institutions in Malaysia. First, it investigates the level of social disclosure in a highly regulated industry; and second, it discusses corporate social disclosure practice by firms in other countries. The research findings show that the social disclosure level among banks and finance companies in Malaysia is low, and that the most common social disclosure pertains to products or services. Legal Commentaries Presentation of Petition of Winding-up: Should Banks Freeze Accounts of affected Companies? (Teow Leong Wah) Sale of Property by Private Treaty (Peter S W Ling) Top Back