Income smoothing in banks and insurance companies and its impact on earnings per share – evidence from Jordan

The facilitation of economic transactions and friendly investor environment is undertaken through effective performance of financial systems. Mobilization of savings and funding the profitable business opportunities are essential in improving the efficiency of intermediation. The study aims to evaluate the effects of nationalization and privatization on Indian banks. Various factors have been considered to examine the effects of privatization and nationalization, including sources of public sector inefficiency, measures of firm performance, econometric issues, and the mode of privatization. The data was collected for the period of 1998 to 2016 from Indian banks. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used to evaluate the financial reports of the banks selected to evaluate the efficiency of input and output variables. Positive results were observed, concerning the efficiency and profitability of banking industry after banks’ privatization. Performance of private banks has been observed effective and efficient as compared to the public sector banks. Privatization of banks must be increased and maintained to sustain the efficiency of the banks and implement strategies to maintain the assets. Future studies may recruit more appropriate sample size to evaluate the privatization and nationalization effects of Indian banking industry. Greater number of banks will provide more precise results, using data envelopment analysis.

The study aims to measure the extent of implementing ERP systems in the banking sector in Jordan, and identify the main factors that influence the implementation decision, in addition to measure the impact of the post-implementation of the ERP system on the financial performance. The study utilized a content analysis as a research instrument. The study of population consisted of all the banks in Jordan, where the study applied ‘Purposive Sample’ type. Therefore, the study included 11 banks from 2011 to 2016.
The study indicated that the implementation year of the ERP system started in most of the Jordanian banks in 2013, and the rates vary from bank to bank according to their importance and the level of awareness. Training courses are considered the main variable that these banks face in the process of implementation. In addition, awareness of the advantages, the cost, and supporting the infrastructure are the core factors needed to influence the implementation decision.
There is no impact when implementing an ERP system on the financial performance of the Jordanian banks in regard to the ROI and the DPS; on the other hand, there is an impact of the ERP system on the overall performance of the banks.
The study recommends to disseminate knowledge on the advantages of implementing of ERP system in Jordanian banks and to develop the IT department efficiency. Moreover, it will be worthwhile to examine the effect of ERP systems by utilizing financial and non-financial measurements.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected different sectors of the economy, including insurance, and has become a problem and a clear catalyst for innovation. The pandemic has highlighted some inefficiencies of the traditional model of interaction between insurers and their customers and focused on insurance companies’ efforts on innovations and investments in the digital future. That is why the article aims to generalize the transformations of the institutional environment in the InsurTech ecosystem in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and identify prospects for its development in the post-pandemic period.
The analysis of the functioning of InsurTech as an ecosystem necessitated the identification of challenges for the insurance market in the context of COVID-19. The peculiarities of the insurance market development have been identified: the blurring of boundaries between insurers, BigTech firms, and technological partners; expanding interaction with policyholders based on the principle of support and the use of social networks; changes in the structure of the implemented insurance services; an increase in insurance fraud cases; the growing demand for parametric insurance products; introduction of a digital approach to the interaction with customers and employees, modernization of technological infrastructure and expansion of data processing capabilities; remote risk identification; acceleration in the use of financial technologies by insurance market participants. There is a transformation of the insurance market under the influence of business processes digitalization because insurers are aware of the importance of InsurTech in the formation of competitive advantages.
For many companies, the crisis has strengthened their innovative development strategies and accelerated the implementation of financial technology tools in their business processes against the background of modernization of technological infrastructure. Chatbots, telematics, the Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, etc., are widely used. In the future, InsurTech will also play an important role in introducing digital innovations in the insurance market.