MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
SCHOOL OF BANKING
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT
COURSE: INTERNATIONAL BANKING
Lecturer
:
Student Name
Class
:
:
Class Code
:
Major
Student ID
:
:
Batch
:
Ho Chi Minh City, June 2021
Part 1
Question 1: What are the three core functions of investment banking? How does
investment banking differ from commercial banking? (chapter 5)
What are the three core functions of investment banking?
The three core functions of investment banking are to underwrite and sell stocks and bonds to
investors, create a stock market for investors who want to buy and sell them, and provide
services. investment banking. consulting-selling all forms of consulting to large companies and
governments.
When most people think of underwriting, they envision a process in which an individual or
organization accepts financial risk (usually insurance-related) in exchange for a fee.
Underwriting is also referred to as primary market making. This is because the primary market
is the first market in which a security can trade, as opposed to the secondary market, which only
allows for the trading of aged or seasoned securities.
How does investment banking differ from commercial banking?
The points of investment banking that differ from commercial banking are that investment
banking is a higher-risk business because it depends on the ups and downs of the stock market,
interest rates, and other intangible factors, reflecting the high degree of speculation involved.
Investment banking doesn’t accept deposits from customers, but commercial banking does.
Investment banking funds come primarily from the issuance of stocks or bonds. For commercial
banking, their fund mainly comes from accepting deposits from customers and making loans to
people and small businesses.
In the area of international corporate commercial banking, we have looked at:
•
Elements of the international trade finance and information mechanism through which
banks all over the world collaborate to reduce information asymmetry and create benefits for
service companies internationalization between companies of all disciplines;
•
The origin, development and operation of the international lending market account is an
important source of financing for both the private sector and governmental institutions globally;
•
The elemental foundations of international finance, a structural system for financing
private sector activities, capital for large purposes, are becoming increasingly relevant to the
multisectoral sources of finance of the United States. expected basis.;
•
The quality and performance of the globally regulated cash and securities services
offered by most international banks;
•
The case of Citicorp's Global Transaction Services division is an example of a highly
successful approach to trade facilitation, cash management and trading securities services
globally.
1
•
In the area of leading international investment budgeting, we looked at:
•
The lead bank's primary role is as an agent and intermediary of structured financing
designed to meet the objectives and constraints of issuers and investors;
•
The full scope of investment banking's revenue-generating activities and the quality of
conflict of interest content arising from these activities;
•
The basic elements and segments of underwriting and the nature of the competition for
a position on broad equity and fixed income issues;
•
Trading derivatives and budget games as stance makers for clients and traders for their
own accounts;
Question 2: What are the risks associated with project finance? How can a lender mitigate
these risks?
What are the risks associated with project finance?
The risks associated with project finance include:
•
Resource risk: the cash flow of the project is not enough to pay the debts or there are
not enough raw materials (oil, gas and minerals) to carry out the project.
•
Input risk: not available energy and raw materials or too high input prices of raw
materials.
•
Completion risk The project in progress is delayed for an unforeseeable period of time.
As a result, the project's costs exceed the allowable level significantly.
•
Market risk: the demand for the project in the future is significantly reduced and maybe
no longer needed when the project is completed.
•
Operational risks: when the project goes into operation, there are some problems in the
operation stage. Such malfunctions cause the cost to change or change important factors such
as labor and transportation to be interrupted.
•
Force majeure: these are the risks that cause the project to be interrupted and that the
project implementer can not do anything to be able to continue the project (war, natural disasters
and epidemics).
•
Political risk but conflicts and conflicts surrounding the project may cause
disadvantages to the implementation or operation of the project.
•
Regulatory risk: this risk occurs at project completion due to changes in government
regulations and laws related to a certain industry. Actions such as raising taxes, banning certain
activities, and opening markets to more competition can negatively affect project outcomes and
jeopardize a project's ability to repay loans.
How can a lender mitigate these risks?
2
Lenders can mitigate risk by carefully assessing creditworthiness based on a project's future
cash flow sensitivity analysis in various situations where credit support may be required.
Additional specific tools from project sponsors to mitigate risks have been identified and
quantified. When lenders have an in-depth understanding of project-specific risks, they can
appropriately allocate risks among different project participants.
In addition, lenders can establish obligations of service providers in the contract setting out
specific duties, including penalties for non-compliance with the contract. that service providers
guarantee to lenders.
In addition, sponsors should choose a financial advisor (either in the leading banking team or
in the project's investment bank branches) to consider the complexity of the structure. project
finance refers to the loan agreements of other lenders.
Part 2
Case study 1: "Banco Espirito Santo"
Question 1: What are the main factors that drive the failure of the bank? Please explain.
In your opinion, what lessons should be learned from the case of Banco Espirito Santo.
Factors leading to the failure of BES:
Complex structural system
In contrast to other Portuguese banks, after privatization, Ricardo Salgado directed BES to
follow a strategy of “focusing on organic growth”. This complicates the ownership structure of
parent company Espirito Santo International (ESI) even more. With a complex ownership
structure that flows through each management level, there is little openness and lack of
transparency in financial matters between different entities. Therefore, we can consider factors
related to the ownership structure of the organization when assessing the cost of BES failure.
There is an argument that banking in Europe should suffer the negative effects of the separation
between commercial banking and investment banking, but more broadly between banking and
commercial activities. The case of BES Bank proves this to be true. Over the years, ESI has
sought to develop itself as a consortium of commercial companies operating in diverse business
sectors (e.g. real estate, agriculture, healthcare, energy, etc.) quantity and tourism etc). Of
course, ESI's growth is financed by debt, cash flow from BES's banking operations, and they
also use Espirito Santo's stake in BES as collateral. Although ESIs grow rapidly across many
business areas, they also have the potential to cause credit misallocation in the commercial and
industrial sectors of the group. For example, if ESI falls into a state of collapse in those areas,
then BES will suffer an increase in bad debts and lead to large losses and losses for the bank.
Above all, ESI is not subject to any prudential supervision, so the BES bank under the
3
leadership of Ricardo Salgado must accept the risk of an increase in the debts of other ESI group
members.
Supervision and related causes:
When a banking crisis occurs, doubts about the cause of the crisis often turn to the way the
central bank supervises. Although supervision is not meant to prevent bank failure, it does play
an important role in monitoring bank failures. Because it helps to reduce both the probability
and impact of financial crises whether domestic or worldwide.
Based on the readings, the reader can clearly see that the Central Bank of Portugal , the national
supervisory and regulatory body, has not carefully monitored macroeconomic changes.
Significant scale and micro has occurred at the level of the banking system that should have
been closely monitored and managed. In particular, the Central Bank of Portugal failed to
recognize the risks associated with BES's activities, which helped BES bypass the Central Bank
of Portugal through legal loopholes. This gap appears in the environmental regulation of
financial firms spanning many national jurisdictions - here it seems that little information is
exchanged between regulators in different countries ( especially Portugal, Luxembourg and
Switzerland). It thus helped to blur the risks associated with the company's activities and
perhaps helped conceal serious regulatory violations.
Although the Central Bank of Portugal then tried to prevent the collapse of BES, it failed. the
Central Bank of Portugal ordered a book review to verify potential liabilities in subsidiaries and
other shareholders that could seriously affect BES. In the first half of 2014, the watchdog also
took other measures, such as imposing the ESFG in reserve of 700 million euros in case the
non-financial companies in the group were unable to redeem their debt securities. booked with
BES customer.
Competition for inheritance in the family
The start of the race for the right was when Ricardo Salgado's cousin, Jose Maria Ricciardi, the
head of the bank's investment branch, expressed concern and doubt about the family's debt
situation. He disagreed with his cousin on how to finance the corporation itself through the sale
of bonds issued by various Espirito Santo institutions to individual and institutional clients by
BES.
Ricciardi blamed Ricardo for the family's predicament and called for his cousin to step down,
but Ricardo remained in office. The cousin then continued to urge the Portuguese financial
authorities to review the business and financial situation of ESI. And the examination revealed
that ESI appeared to have misrepresented the value of assets, misjudged risks, and that financial
liabilities were not fully recognized on ESI's statements.
4
Through investigative reports at the end of 2013 began to suspect the financial relationships
between Banco Espirito Santo and controlling shareholder Espirito Santo International (ESI)
including huge debts to be paid and the use of using BES stock as collateral for the debt Espirito
Santo. After a request from the Bank of Portugal that BES must drastically reduce the credit
extended to its parent company. In March 2014, KPMG informed the Bank of Portugal of the
anomalies examined in the Espirito Santo audit, information that was made available to the
public at a later time.
Business ethics of the leader
Ricardo Salgado is a BES mentor and matchmaker. He succeeded in maintaining relations with
successive governments and exerted great influence in the main areas of Portuguese business.
Leadership has two sides to it: leaders can go from a brilliant and wise leader to a fool in one
of his bad decisions. It is a fact that using BES to lend money to its shareholders, the accounting
department concealing the true financial position of the corporation, and other similar adverse
events have pushed the bank to downfall, which occurred under the direction of Salgado.
Ricardo Salgado was forced to resign in June 2014 as President of Banco Espirito Santo, along
with other family members who have held senior management roles at the Bank. Ricardo was
later arrested on suspicion of tax evasion, money laundering and conducting business ethics
violations for his own profit.
Lessons can be learned from the case of Banco Espirito Santo:
The central bank needs to coordinate with the state to come up with an appropriate set of legal
zones to supervise the activities of commercial banks to limit mistakes and mistakes of
commercial banks and at the same time can secure loans or borrowings properly to avoid bad
debts that lead to liquidity crisis of banks, as they accept high-risk loans to generate more
profits. At the same time, limit the banks' contact and work with malicious financial institutions.
Next, bankers need to separate commercial banking from investment banking to avoid systemic
collapse. Private banks should not build a family-owned business model or system because it
leads to competition for succession, making the bank's operations inefficient. The bank's
important positions are not properly evaluated, leading to ineffective banking development
orientation when only bringing family members to work but not paying attention to their
capacity. or not. The central bank should establish regulatory standards for commercial and
private banks to limit and eliminate money laundering and tax evasion.
Question 2: In your opinion, how poorly or well the government react to the state-in-play of
Banco Espirito Santo described in this case? Was the resolution plan effective when it was
imposed on Banco Espirito Santo. If so, please explain.
5
In your opinion, how poorly or well the government react to the state-in-play of Banco Espirito
Santo described in this case?
In my opinion, the Portuguese government reacted very poorly to the Banco Espirito Santo
activities described in the above article. BES was not subject to any oversight from the budget
of the Central Bank of Portugal as it accepted the risk of refinancing the blossoming accounts
of other ESI members. They took advantage of the flawed change of regulatory and
methodological gaps in the regulatory environment of financial firms spanning many national
jurisdictions - here very little information is provided. . . between regulatory authorities in
different countries (especially Portugal, Luxembourg and Switzerland). BES work blurs the
risks associated with a company's operations and hides liabilities about a company's debt or
loan levels very easily. As the debt grew, BES used its stock as collateral. It was only when
Ricardo's last name appeared that the Central Bank of Portugal began to question the financial
relationship of the BES and ESI. They asked KPMG to examine the position and books of ESI
and they discovered commonalities, such as ESI misrecording of assets, incorrect risk
assessment, liabilities. The main document is not a complete report. Especially after the growth
of ESI are activities that have a negative impact on BES bank. These activities expose BES to
the risk of increased liabilities from member library companies of the ESI group.
But it was too early, and when Salgado linked the regulatory systems of the Portuguese
government and the Governor of the Central Bank, Carlos Costa, asked for a 2.5 billion euro
loan to back it up. . . group. But he was recommended by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
Then the relationship between BES and ESI is published and BES inevitably hangs.
After BES fell into crisis and announced a loss of €3.5 billion for the second quarter of 2014.
That loss plus a €2.1 billion loss was reported by consultants and the Portuguese Government.
Computer factory.
One failure of the BES bank is that the government is not interested in the bank taking risks to
generate profits but working with companies with bad financial situations. In addition, the
governance system of BES also shows us the shortcomings of the Portuguese Government when
they lack management communication so creating gaps in the management method is very
important. Finally, the biggest personnel from the departure of capable and influential leaders
affected the image and the economy when BES bank was weak and in need of help.
Was the resolution plan effective when it was imposed on Banco Espirito Santo. If so, please
explain.
The government collapse plan worked well when it was applied to Banco Espirito Santo (BES)
in Portugal, but in Angola it did not work.
6
After the BES announced a record loss of 3.5 billion euros in the second quarter of 2014, the
Central Bank of Portugal faced the collapse of the BES and the risks of a systemic crisis related
to the banking system. the total banking system created by BES. So the Central Bank of Portugal
decided to apply to BES a settlement called “bridge institution tool”, combined guarantee/relief,
BES bank was split in half. Specifically, the Central Bank of Portugal guaranteed Banco Esrito
Santo with a 4.9 billion euro capital injection from sovereign bailout during the European debt
crisis in 2011. The bailout package from the Central Bank The Portuguese central government
imposed most of the damage on the private creditors of the BES. As a result, taxpayers will not
bear the financial burden when the Central Bank of Portugal resolves the collapse of the BES.
On the one hand, the part BES is the “bad bank,” with equity and liabilities to subordinate
creditors, as well as other malicious assets, contingent liabilities, and claims. usually related
parties. In the end a “bad” bank like BES is irreversible and has to wait for liquidation over
time.
As for BES's "bad" bank investment in Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA), BES's subsidiary
in Angola, it was handled loosely and irresponsibly. The central bank of Angola revoked
guarantees on these investments, and state-appointed administrators took over the management
of BESA. The central bank of Portugal provides an additional 3.3 billion euros to BESA in the
hope of recovering some of its loans in the bank's resolution. This time, however, the central
bank of Portugal has not made the same mistake of the past when making provisions for the
entire BESA debt.
On the other hand, an established “good bank” is Novo Banco (NB). NB Bank includes all BES
employees, branches, deposit and credit customers, as well as assumes the rest of the balance
sheet, including deposits, senior debt obligations and healthy assets. strong. Bank NB will be
sold to another bank in a bidding process to secure the highest possible price in order to recover
as much as possible of the €4.9 billion in tax relief available to taxpayers.
In addition, pending the liquidation of BES, the owner also launched investigations to determine
whether illegal or fraudulent activities were related to the demise of Banco Espirito Santo.
In addition to the standards on governance and management, it is also necessary to carefully
consider and apply measures to promote transparency in financial statements, fight money
laundering and tax evasion. For example, opening training courses for staff to improve and
enhance awareness and experience in identifying customer characteristics in money laundering
prevention and combat. In addition, the government needs to develop and apply internal
regulations effectively and reasonably on preventing and combating money laundering. Internal
regulations include the basic policies, regulations, processes and procedures for identifying
money laundering. As for banks, it is necessary to research, develop and apply a reporting
7
system and handle suspicious transactions. In the process of performing transactions with
customers, if detecting transactions with signs of law violation, records and information
provided by customers are of low accuracy or incomplete, must promptly prepare Report
suspicious transactions and hand them over quickly to the Anti-Money Laundering Department.
In addition, banks can think of the option of hiring experts on prevention and combat of money
laundering to minimize the above behavior. Because of these security experts they have
experience and expertise in identifying customers and they have software that monitors
transactions in progress, thereby improving the effectiveness of anti-money laundering
activities.
Case study 2: "Bitcoin: Future of digital payment"
Question 1: One of the arguments given by the persons who are not favor of Bitcoins and
the other similar “virtual currencies” is that it is this lack of supervision and of regulation
that makes Bitcoin dangerous. Do you agree with this point of view? If not, please explain
In my view, I agree with the view that “the lack of oversight and regulation has made Bitcoin
dangerous”, but disagree completely. Because Bitcoin becomes dangerous because of many
other objective factors, not just because of the lack of supervision and regulation by the
government. Not to mention after the collapse of Bitcoin service providers and Bitcoin
exchanges, Bitcoin has attracted significant regulatory scrutiny by governments around the
world on both sides. and positive.
Essentially, Bitcoin is described as “a completely new peer-to-peer electronic cash system,
without a trusted third party.” The absence of a trusted third party creates a risk for the safety
of Bitcoin transactions when only the Bitcoin private key is used as proof of ownership. In the
absence of government oversight and regulation of Bitcoin, it is used by people for a variety of
purposes. To some, Bitcoin looks like a niche currency used largely by libertarians. But it also
includes those who value “anonymity” in Bitcoin transactions for a negative purpose: those
who do not want their transactions detected by central banks or those who buy goods. illegal.
It is clear that the lack of oversight and regulation by the government is part of the reason that
creates opportunities for illegal activities in Bitcoin transactions and makes Bitcoin dangerous.
The risk of fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin is an objective factor that cannot be ignored in
making Bitcoin dangerous. It greatly affects Bitcoin service providers, merchants and especially
Bitcoin exchanges. Specifically in the reading we can see Mt. Gox is a once dominant Bitcoin
exchange that broke down in September 2014 as they reportedly lost around 750,000 bitcoins
of their users and 100,000 bitcoins of their own, the equivalent of nearly half a billion USD.
Basically, Bitcoin itself has brought with it the property of “time deflation” or in other words
the value of Bitcoin is inherently volatile over time. Of course, Bitcoin's deflation, especially
8
during the Great Recession, will encourage speculation and hoarding. Because thinking: “Why
should they spend Bitcoin today when it could be worth so much more tomorrow?” is inevitable.
According to the reading, as of May 2014, there are more than 94% of all bitcoins in circulation,
with a total value of over $5.5 billion, held by only 0.33% of all Bitcoin addresses. . At the time,
there were about 12.7 million bitcoins in existence, but researchers estimate that 64% of all
bitcoins have never been used once, meaning the effective number of bitcoins in circulation is
close to 4 ,5 million. Speculating and hoarding Bitcoin can be seen as wasteful and negative for
economies around the world.
Besides fluctuating in value, Bitcoin is far more dangerous due to its high risk of fraud.
Specifically, hackers can break into the cloud storage of Bitcoin wallet service providers to steal
other people's Bitcoin private keys. A prime example of this is Flexcoin, a cloud-based Bitcoin
wallet service, which fell into crisis and then went bankrupt when it was reported that they were
hacked and had 896 bitcoins belonging to them stolen. owned by their customers, that Bitcoin
was worth more than $500,000 at the time.
Last but not least, there are acts of taking advantage of Bitcoin to violate the law. After Mt. Gox
bankruptcy, a US senator has asked government regulators to ban Bitcoin. The purpose of this
is to prevent illegal activities that have been and are taking place such as drug trafficking and
money laundering with Bitcoin. While a complete ban on Bitcoin in the United States is unlikely
in that time frame, there are still a number of executives at Bitcoin companies who have been
arrested for money laundering charges. The incident has exacerbated the perception that the
legislation surrounding cryptocurrencies is “ambiguous”. In the text, we can see an example of
the commercial use of Bitcoin on the Silk Road marketplace, launched in February 2011 and
called “eBay for illegal drugs.”
Since Silk Road provides complete anonymity for both buyers and sellers, partly by relying
entirely on Bitcoin for payments, it is unlikely that any illegal activity in the Silk Road
marketplace will occur. avoidable. Following a US senator's Bitcoin bran request, the FBI shut
down Silk Road in October 2013, while also arresting its alleged owner.
As a result of the events of Mt. Gox, Silk Road, First Meta, Flexcoin etc. have attracted
significant regulatory scrutiny by governments around the world on Bitcion. On the positive
side, governments have realized that it is necessary to engage in oversight and regulation in
order to promote a faster, safer and efficient payment system with digital currencies like
Bitcoin. than. In addition, governments need to deal with other factors based on the balance
between legal uses and the potential for illegal activities. On the negative side, some
governments have issued warnings and bans on trading Bitcoin and other similar “virtual
currencies”.
9
Question 2: If you were running a business, would you accept Bitcoins for payments for
your products/services? Why or Why not? What would you do to protect your business
against the risks due to the fluctuations of the value of Bitcoins compared with the
traditional currencies and against the risk of fraud?
If you were running a business, would you accept Bitcoins for payments for your
products/services? Why or Why not?
As a business operator, I will accept payments for small business value products in Bitcoin.
While accepting in Bitcoin exposes businesses to many challenges such as: implementing the
Bitcoin protocol to facilitate the transfer of bitcoins from consumers to merchants; convert
received bitcoins into fiat currency; integrate the Bitcoin buying process into an online shopping
cart system or a store point of sale system; etc… . But the benefits of accepting Bitcoin
payments can be huge and long-lasting.
When businesses accept customers to transact with Bitcoin, businesses can attract a large
number of customers to the business. In fact, there are many Bitcoin wallets that charge no
transaction fees or very little transaction fees, so there is a lot of potential to attract customers
by allowing payments in Bitcoin. By offering Bitcoin transactions, businesses can earn a
significant amount of revenue from new and potential customers. Specifically in the text, we
can see that Overstock.com, a large Internet retailer known for deep discounts to attract
customers, reported Bitcoin sales of $1 million for the month. first accepted to offer Bitcoin
transactions to customers (the company's annual revenue is about $1.3 billion). Not to mention
when Foodler accepted Bitcoin as payment, 60% of new customers appeared among those who
bought with Bitcoin. Similarly, computer electronics retailer TigerDirect received a $500,000
Bitcoin order within three days of accepting the digital currency.
Besides, we can see that the biggest obstacle for customers of foreign enterprises is that
customers are very annoyed in having to pay an average fee of about 8.5% of the total amount
being transferred. As for businesses, it takes a few days after a customer's payment to receive
money even if they have used the largest money transfer service of Western Union or
MoneyGram. But when paying with Bitcoin, transferring money becomes easier and faster.
Instead of requiring many complicated procedures to register an account and make international
payments. Bitcoin is not like that. Even customers only need to use SMS and a feature phone
to use and pay with Bitcoin around the world, including African countries. In addition, making
international transactions is easy, and Bitcoin's transaction fees are not high or free. Not to
mention that the world's leading companies in providing Bitcoin services are constantly
competing for "transaction fees" and the conversion process between fiat currencies. Imagine
the fact that customers can pay with Bitcoin with their mobile number and low transaction costs
10
will of course stimulate people to increase consumption in the world market. Therefore,
accepting payments in Bitcoin will bring huge profits from the world market.
In addition to reducing transaction costs and facilitating payments at home and abroad,
accepting Bitcoin offers a number of benefits to merchants over credit cards in terms of reduced
chargebacks. When there is no longer a situation where consumers dispute a fee (sometimes
months after payment occurs) and force the seller to return the money to the consumer,
businesses will reduce labor and compensation costs. complete. This further promises a better
future when businesses accept payments in Bitcoin.
What would you do to protect your business against the risks due to the fluctuations of
the value of Bitcoins compared with the traditional currencies and against the risk of
fraud?
When accepting payments in Bitcoin, businesses face many risks, especially those caused by
fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin compared to traditional currencies and against the risk of
fraud.
On the one hand, to combat the risk of fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin, businesses will list
prices of goods/services in fiat currency. On the other hand, because businesses pay their
employees in fiat currency, the listing of prices of goods/services is in fiat currency. Businesses
can take full advantage of the instant “cash out” service offered by Bitcoin wallet service
providers. For example, if a consumer chooses to pay for goods with Bitcoin, merchant service
providers will quote a price in Bitcoin, based on the seller's listed price and the current exchange
rate available from one place. called Bitcoin exchange. After receiving Bitcoins from
customers, service providers immediately convert bitcoins into fiat currency by automatically
finding the top exchanges for the most profitable exchange rates.
A typical solution to limit the risk of Bitcoin's value fluctuations is to use Coinbase wallet.
Since Coinbase is both a consumer wallet and a merchant service provider, it is able to offer
Coinbase wallet users an optimized “two-click” payment process at all merchants on Coinbase.
As a result, businesses can convert Bitcoins into currency quickly on Coinbase wallets to avoid
the risk of Bitcoin's value fluctuations when the exchange rate changes. In addition, when
making international payments, businesses can use BIPS' merchant services. The service
focuses on international Bitcoin transactions and supports conversion to over 150 fiat
currencies. With BIPS being able to diversify Bitcoin-to-cash conversions in other countries, it
is a good way to limit the volatility of Bitcoin's value against the exchange rate when making
international payments.
Besides addressing the risk of Bitcoin's value fluctuations compared to traditional currencies,
it's equally important to combat the risk of fraud in accepting Bitcoin payments.
11
When a business makes a "cash out" (transferring ownership of Bitcoin to a Bitcoin wallet
address and receiving fiat currency), that company must prove ownership of a private key,
which can only be unlocked publicly. for Bitcoins when making a "cash out". Therefore, in my
opinion, businesses will not store Bitcoin private keys in the cloud as it can be stolen by cyber
hackers. In addition, businesses need to buy theft insurance or prefer a wallet with theft
insurance that stores Circle's Bitcoin private keys. In addition, businesses should use the "cold
storage" services, offline storage, of leading Bitcoin wallet service providers such as Coinbase,
Circle, etc. Not to mention encryption services on external drives spread throughout physical
vaults guarded by armed guards are also essential for security and fraud protection. fraud for
businesses.
12
Reference
Case: Banco Espirito Santo. INSEAD.
Case: Bitcoin: The Future of Digital Payments. Harvard Business School.
I.F.-H.F.B.S. (2015). International Banking for a New Century. Cenveo.
H.J.E.M.D.S.B. (2002). International Banking: Text and Cases. Pearson Education.
13