Abstract
The use of new information and communication technologies (ICT) as a business tool has increased rapidly for the past 10 years (Bonsón, Coffin, & Watson, 2000; Claessens, Glaessner, & Klingebiel, 2000; Vasarhelyi & Greenstein, 2003). More specifically, financial software, e-banking, and the Internet, as core aspects of the various technologies used, have become driving forces behind the expansion of firms and the development of cash management. New technologies are considered as one of the most attractive ways for businesses to increase revenue and achieve economies of scale that can reduce unit costs (Ballantine & Stray, 1998; Barajas & Villanueva, 2001; Daniel, 1999; Daniel & Storey, 1997; Deyoung, 2001; Downes & Muy, 1998; Faulder, 2001; Jayawardhena & Foley, 2000). There are different studies about the use of ICT in the management of the enterprise that explain the obtaining of enterprise performance. Brynjolfsson and Hitt (2000) and Nájera (2005) have done a review of these works and a classification of these types of researches. Unfortunately, there are not specific works or empirical researches about the use of e-banking in cash management; consequently, this work is focused in this. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. The theoretical foundation on which the study is based is explained in Section 2. Section 3 presents the data and the analysis procedure used to conduct the empirical study. The main results of the investigation are shown in Section 4, and Section 5 presents conclusions. The chapter ends with a list of bibliographical references.
TopBackground
A use case “describes the system’s behavior under various conditions as the system responds to a request from one of the stakeholders” (Cockburn, 2001). A use case should have a clear goal and describe what should happen (but not how it should happen) as users interact with the system. Common examples would include a customer renting a video, purchasing an item, withdrawing funds from a bank account, etc. The use case also identifies the main “actors” involved which, in the previous examples, could include the customer, employees (e.g., rental clerk), a device (bank machine), time (clock), etc. The use case must provide something of value to one or more actors; otherwise there would be no need for it. While the main use case narrative would describe a successful rental, purchase, or withdrawal, alternative outcomes would handle problems such as rejected credit cards, insufficient funds, etc.
Key Terms in this Chapter
E-Banking: The electronic bank consists of the use of electronic channels by means of which the financial institutions can send products or offer the banking services. Between the services and products, they are possible to be included, deposits, financial management of accounts, warnings, payments of electronic accounts, and provision of other products of electronic payments.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): The ICT has defined as the grouping of the technologies of information, that they are characterized by the technologies of registries of contents (computer science, communications, Telematics), and the technologies of the communication, that essentially group the radio, the television and the telephony.
Internet Banking: From the global concept of electronic bank, we considered that the bank by Internet consists of the use of the Internet channel like communication channel, banking product distribution, and hiring on the part of the financial organizations.
Electronic Financial Instruments: They consist of financial products that are contracted, emitted, and paid without the use in paper of financial documents.
Cash Management: The cash management corresponds to the obtaining of available the necessary one, at the suitable moment, to the smaller possible cost for which the treasury is planned, is decided what short-term financing and investment to make, analyze the relations with the financial organizations and the risks are managed. In addition, the pursuit and the analysis of the management of the circuit of collections and payments are essential, along with the enterprise culture.
Electronic Cash Management: It is possible to be defined as the set of procedures and practices of integrated management of treasury with the developments in the technologies of the information.
ICT in Cash Management: It consists of the use of different techniques, such as Internet, Intranet, software, electronic bank, and the bank by Internet, with object to essentially obtain the efficiency of the management of treasury by means of the reduction of costs.