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The increased use of checks in nonlocal payments at the end of the nineteenth century presented problems for their clearing and collection. Checks were required to be paid in full (at par) only when presented directly to the drawn-upon bank at its counter. Consequently, many, primarily rural or small-town, banks began to charge remittance fees on checks not presented for collection in person. Such fees and the alleged circuitous routing of checks in the process of collection to avoid them were widely criticized defects of the pre-Federal Reserve payments system. As the new Federal Reserve established its own system for check clearing and collection, it also took as an implicit mandate the promotion of universal par clearing and collection. The result was a bitter struggle with non-par banks, the numbers of which initially shrunk dramatically but then rebounded. A 1923 Supreme Court decision ended the Fed’s active (or coercive) pursuit of universal par clearing, and non-par banking persisted thereafter for decades. Not until the Monetary Control Act of 1980 was universal par clearing and true monetary union, in which standard means of payment are accepted at par everywhere, achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive historical review of the role of the Federal Reserve in retail payments in the USA.

It reviews the literature on the role of the Federal Reserve and assessments of its involvement.

In addition to its oversight and operational role, the Federal Reserve has conducted R&D and facilitated technology adoption. It has provided effective competition to the private sector without subsidies.

The Federal Reserve has served the public interest and private networks have benefited from the “visible hand” of government.

Migration to electronic payments will likely change its role from an operator to setting standards for safety and security.

The historical review provides context against which the future strategy of the Federal Reserve may be assessed.

The paper aims to explore the present cheque clearance system in the USA and its possible misuses in the practical sense. Cheque kiting has been a way of creating fictitious cash balances on the balance sheet, which is a fraud. This practice can be prevented by a different accounting treatment.

The paper compares the cheque clearance system in the USA with the author’s own experiences from Turkey. It purports the riskiness of the present cheque clearance system on the financial statements and suggests a practical accounting application to prevent possible financial statement misrepresentations.

The paper explores that if the present accounting treatment is changed both for the banks and the businesses, the possibility of cheque kiting and misrepresentation of cash balances on the balance sheet will end. Basically, cash is the amount that can be used by the customer, the rest is not cash, it is “cheques in collection” and it should be treated as an account receivable until it is collected.

Financial statements are vital for the business world. Based on these statements, banks lend money, governments collect taxes and people buy and sell stocks. They need to be presented fairly. The present accounting application on cheque clearance is not transparent enough in the USA, and this might lead to misrepresentation of financial statements. The paper suggests a practical solution to this problem. By changing the accounting treatment, the companies will only show cash in their cash accounts and not the cheques in the collection process.

Fair treatment is the motto for any situation we face in our daily lives. One may be a poor or rich person but the treatment should be fair unless he/she is a fraudster. A rich person’s cheque is deposited in his/her bank account the next business day, and a poor person’s cheque might take days to be credited. This is not a fair treatment. The paper suggests that there must be a one-way accounting treatment, regardless of the depositor’s financial situation.

This paper has been prepared based on the author’s past business experience in Turkey and his study of the US cheque clearance system, comparing the two. It reflects the real-world examples of cheque kiting and its negative consequences in the USA and proposes a solution.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of mobile self-efficacy on personal digital archiving (PDA) practices of undergraduate students.

This study used a quantitative research design for achieving the objectives. The population consisted of undergraduate students from public sector universities (the top five) of Punjab, Pakistan, listed in the Higher Education Commission recognized general universities. The data were analysed by using SmartPLS, mobile self-efficacy was the independent variable that consisted of two constructs (basic mobile phone operations and using the internet and emails). PDA practices was the dependent variable (information backup, clearing and deleting).

The analysis consisted of two major parts: first the assessment of measurement model and second the structural equation modelling analysis. A significant impact of mobile self-efficacy (basic mobile phone operations, using internet and email) was found on all the sub-constructs (information backup, information clearing and information deleting) of PDA practices. However, using internet and email has no significant impact on the information clearing practices of undergraduate students of Pakistani universities.

This study is a valuable addition to the extant literature because no comprehensive research has been carried out on the impact of mobile self-efficacy and PDA through mobile phones. It also contributes theoretically in the form of the development of a validated instrument on mobile-based PDA. Additionally, it possesses practical value for information literacy instruction programs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze e-waste management systems in Germany, Switzerland, Japan and India and benchmark best practices in the Indian scenario.

The first part of the research paper focuses on the description of e-waste management systems in the above-mentioned countries using a case study analysis approach while the second part analyzes, evaluates and compares e-waste management systems performance based on seven performance indicators using a five-point scale. Finally, the RADAR chart approach is used to benchmark the best practices of e-waste management in these countries in the Indian scenario.

The study finds that India is lagging far behind from Germany, Switzerland, and Japan in e-waste management despite being the fifth largest e-waste generator across the globe. India must adopt best practices followed in these nations like a dedicated agency to oversee and coordinate the e-waste management, coordination among different value chain partners involved in e-waste management, development of infrastructure to collect and process e-waste, monitoring and control of all processes and stakeholders, etc.

The study suggests the solution to the loopholes in the Indian e-waste management system by adopting the collection, recycling and reporting mechanism followed in German, Swiss and the Japanese e-waste management system. There is a dire need to improve e-waste management systems in India as only 5 percent of e-waste is processed through the organized sector.

E-waste is increasing at an alarming rate and most of e-waste in India is being handled by the unorganized sector, where rudimentary methods are used to process e-waste severely damaging the environment and health of workers. The unorganized market employs 0.5m child laborers. Hence, routing the e-waste to the organized sector will result in social benefits by putting a check on unsafe practices and will create green jobs.

This paper’s contribution lies in extracting the best practices followed in nations excelling in e-waste management and recommend their implications in the Indian scenario. This study is aimed at all the stakeholders, but especially at policy-makers and producers, who have the onus to tackle the e-waste problem.

The paper proposes that improvements in the productivity of process technology can be achieved by analyzing and instituting changes in the rules and methods through which work is organized. The implementation of information‐based process technology in a bank’s check processing system provides the context for the study. A simulation approach is used to assess the benefits of introducing alternative workflow scheduling rules after implementation of the new technology. Results from a hypothetical setting, using data from an actual check processing center, demonstrate the cost advantages of introducing a priority‐based scheduling rule. The implications and problems associated with practical implementation are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, categorize and describe the Greek banking payment and settlement systems and the way to SEPA. Also, the purpose is to describe authorities that supervise money laundering through Greek payment systems and identify major categories of suspicious transaction reports and amounts of criminal assets per each category.

The Bank of Greece, central bank of Greece, has explicit tasks in the field of payment and settlement systems. In Greece, there are three payment and settlement systems: large-value payment system (TARGET2), retail payment systems and securities settlement systems.

TARGET2 is based on a technically centralized platform (single shared platform – SSP), which is provided by the central banks of Germany, France and Italy, and it replaces the decentralized structure of the original TARGET system. Migration on TARGET2 took place in Greece on May 19, 2008. Ongoing cooperation between the European System of Central Banks and the banking community through extensive consultations facilitated the smooth migration to TARGET2. Retail payment systems consist of DIAS credit transfers, direct debits, check, ATM transactions and card payments. During the year 2013, DIAS cleared 144.13 million payment transactions with a total value of €184.1 billion. Most of the transactions were credit transfers SEPA compliant. Securities settlement systems operate on the delivery versus payment principle, whereby sales of securities and respective payments are affected simultaneously, as well as the principle of dual notice. Migration of Greek data systems toward SEPA through a regulatory framework will promote the use of common European standards and business practices for a fully automated and efficient processing of payment instruments. Bank of Greece and Greek Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Authority are responsible authorities to supervise illegal activity through bank payment systems. Data show that Greek bank payment systems were used during 2012 for tax evasion and for offences that result in imprisonment for over six months.

Above findings are useful for information technology management, legislative and compliance authorities, investors and person that operate transactions with Greek banking payment and settlement systems.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first study about Greek banking payment systems.

Not many weeks back, according to newspaper reports, three members of the library staff of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London were dismissed. All had refused to carry out issue desk duty. All, according to the newspaper account, were members of ASTMS. None, according to the Library Association yearbook, was a member of the appropriate professional organisation for librarians in Great Britain.

More and more students are majoring in business in colleges and universities today and need access to legal materials. Undergraduate libraries are feeling pressure from these departments to build basic legal collections. This is an awesome responsibility because legal publications are very expensive to purchase initially and must be kept up‐to‐date. Since library literature provides little guidance for the librarian in this endeavor, I would like to pass on to others the knowledge I have gained by building a legal collection in an undergraduate library.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.