Conclusion

You are to recommend a realistic and effective course of action. The deliverable is a 2-page user-friendly report summarizing the issues, analyzing each alternative and making a recommendation. Reflect on the situation and prepare an annotated plan of how you would approach advising members of e*Bancorp’s C-suite. Outline and explain the rationale behind the steps you will take in preparing the advice, the platform you will be choosing to deliver and briefly summarize the key points you have decided to make in the 2-page report.

Recommendations: 

· Employ a Confidential System

· Provide ethical training

· Reinforce Consequences for Unethical Behavior

OUTLINE:

· Intro (W1)

· Issues (3 short paragraphs)

. Ethical issues arising from internal and industry practices (W1)

. Unethical practices in e-marketing (W2)

. Unethical practices relating to e-banking products (W2)

· Recommendations / Alternatives (W3)

· Conclusion (W4)

Online banking has fully revolutionized the way human beings approach financial transactions in the modern age. The online financial institution described in the case study, e*Bancorp, works to make online banking exceptionally easier. Operating primarily in the US, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean, the company offers services such as consumer and commercial banking, mortgage banking, wealth management, corporate payment services, equipment leasing, and insurance (Barclay-Platenburg, 2014). However, no corporation or financial institution exists without flaw, and e*Bancorp is not an exception to this rule. 

One significant problem faced by the company is its use of unethical internal and industry practices. While the existence of fraud and all manner of sharp practices in the banking sector are neither uncommon nor unexpected, its prevalence is negatively impacting the sector and threatening to undermine public faith in the industry (THISDAYLIVE, 2019). In fact, money laundering, investment fraud, toxic loans, banking laws violation are some examples of corporate unethical practices perpetrated by the commercial banks, and possibly by e*Bancorp as well (THISDAYLIVE, 2019). The most common reason behind such unethical practices result from “poor management, insider abuses and other unwholesome practices that have to be dealt with by the relevant authorities” (THISDAYLIVE, 2019).

E-marketing also shows itself as a potential weak point when it comes to upholding ethical values, with the novelty of the digital landscape allowing for all sorts of unsavory practices to slip through the cracks. “Above all else, ethical marketing is honest and transparent” (LoFrisco, 2020) and one of the main issues that is especially prevalent in online marketing is dishonesty. Beyond simply advertising a product as more effective than it really is, as something else than interpreted within the advertisement, or buying fake reviews, some forms of dishonest marketing can be even sneakier. An example of this is a letter appearing to be in an invoice that contains a due date and a balance, but in fine print reveals that the invoice is simply a solicitation for a donation and not at all required (LoFrisco, 2020). 

Similarly to e-marketing, the online nature of e-banking products allows for a lot of potential, unprecedented unethical behavior to take place as well and with more ease than ever before. In trying to reach goals, many small teams within companies now have the option to manipulate their customers’ bank accounts, such as “opening new accounts and issuing debit or credit cards without customer knowledge” (Taiyan, 2019) through features that may come included in some distributed electronic products. Additionally, it isn’t easy to track down these incidents as many products don’t come built with measures to prevent situations like these, especially within companies that don’t have ethical security as a priority.

The issues that e*Bancorp faces revolve around the practice of ethics that can be resolved with the help of implementation research within ethical issues. There are three main alternatives to combat these deficiencies. It includes delaying the launch of mDeposit, proper ethical training, and consistency. Although mDeposit may grant the company market dominance in the e-banking industry, the launch can backfire on them if these dilemmas are not addressed first. The $5 million budget on mDeposit should be split to fund Project Ethics’ organizational-wide ethical risk management program. This would ensure that e*Bancorp will not face heavy fines or jail time in the future for the next annual audit. The ethical risk management training will prevent future violations from occurring and will bring the company in a new direction. Without the training program, the current dilemmas may be repeated and e*Bancorp will continue to lose business. Lastly, consistency lies in the business’ hands when it comes to dealing with pressing issues. The case study shows that e*Bancorp did not take the dilemmas seriously. It was shown that Project Ethics was assembled just after a problem rose, when it should have been set in place early on in e*Bancorp’s lifetime. In order to upkeep the brand’s reputation and reliability, consistency should be met during each annual audit and status reports to prevent ethical violations. By solving these dilemmas now, mDeposit will be launched at a later time when the confidence and moral of the company is corrected and will secure an increase in profit. 

Conclusion: W4

In Conclusion, 

References

Barclay-Platenburg, L. A. (2014, April). Ethical risks, fines, or profits? The Case of e*Bancorp.

UNETHICAL PRACTICES IN THE BANKS – THISDAYLIVE. (2019, June 10). THISDAYLIVE. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/06/10/unethical-practices-in-the-banks/

LoFrisco, A. (2020, February 10). AdEdgeMarketing. Avoiding the unethical digital marketing minefield. https://www.adedgemarketing.com/unethical-digital-marketing-practices/

Taiyan, B. (2019, February 6). Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. The Wells Fargo Cross-Selling Scandal. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/02/06/the-wells-fargo-cross-selling-scandal-2/