Businesses in the current century are being wrapped with information technology in which the majority of the transactions are carried out through distributed computing systems. Information technology today has penetrated into continental African and it is being used for several business financial transactions. It is possible to have a central computer system, which can help in processing several transactions and accessing them from various locations using the internet. Many businesses have launched payment integration gateways from which customers can make their payments through the bank without the need of visiting the bank (Khalil, Nor, Sutanonpaiboon & Hamimah Mastor, 2010. For instance, Zap and PayPal are the common means of payment in Cameroon when it comes to several online businesses where they receive payments from customers. The focus of this article is to identify and state the problems of the college banking systemin Cameroon (Central Africa). The study will focus on 5 top universities in the country and interviews will be conducted with students and financial department staff to better understand the problem. The overall goal is to understand the problem being experience and come up with Student Online Banking which is a system that I intend to develop as a solution to the problems stated thereafter.
Statement of Problems
The General Problem is that many universities today have their students physically visiting the bank when they are making payments and students are forced to go to the bank to get a copy of their collection records. Manual financial transactions are prone to errors and entail tedious computations especially when the institution deals with many financial transactions given their size and number of students. The effective operation of the online student banking relies on the optimality of network infrastructure on the two systems. There are millions of transactions taking place in bank systems in a given limited time which requires an internet of high bandwidth. There are several times when networks in the banks fail and thus the transactions slow down leading to wastage of time for the students.
The Specific Problem is that students waste end up wasting a significant amount of their time queuing at the bank. Fee status also takes a lot of time to reflect at the finance department of the school and students will usually know their fees balances late. The systems do not have instant balance check functionality. The current system is also inefficient because students have to stand for hours in queues at the finance department when they want to enquire on their fee balances. The finance department in these universities must visit the bank in person to collect the fee statements for the purpose of audits. The department must address how incorrect information which might be fed into the system can be collected (Wang & Huynh, 2013).
The statement for each student is kept manually in paper files. There must be a registry office headed by the secretary in which those heaps of files containing student's fee statements are kept. This office also acts as data warehouse where it is possible to find files which are ten decades old. The presence of thousands of forms in the registry gives the staff problems when they want to retrieve statements and financial records from individual students. The process is tiresome and timewasting for both the students and the staff. Therefore, Universities are in need of a computerized system, which is links the bank, the institution of learning, and the students in order to solve the stated problems by bringing efficiency terms of services particularly maximizing the limited time to both students and finance department.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this research study is to analyze the issues in our universities payment systems in Cameroon (Central Africa). The Data will be collected through in-depth interviews at the university and places convenient to the participants. The target population will be the staff and students of the universities in Cameroon (Central Africa). Data will be managed
by NVDATA8 software. There is a need for most universities to embrace technology and make use of it in their finance departments. Computerization of the payment systems will help in solving most of the problems which student face when making payment such as making queues in both the banks and the financial offices in the universities. A computerized system has many advantages compared to the manual method, which is tiresome and has a lot of errors and inaccuracies (Arcega et al., 2015). The result of this study will help to solve problems which students face when making fees payments in addition to challenges that financial departments in schools face. Similarly, the computerized systems are more reliable compared to the manual system. Information systems have revolutionized many areas including finance and it is about time these institutions benefit from an integrated system. This is because the system is accurate and the statement generated when someone makes payment through the process is more reliable compared to the manual generated a receipt. A majority of universities in other countries have already adopted a computerized payment system and it is about time the ones in Cameroon get a similar system.
Research Questions
The aim of this study is to explore the following research questions:
RQ1: How can an integrated information system revolutionize student banking in Cameroon?
RQ2: What are the current challenges to the students and finance departments in universities regarding their banking system?
RQ3: What benefits will a computerized banking system provide to the universities and students in Cameroon?
Research Methodology and Design Type
A rationale is an essential part of analyzing the research methodology and design based on the fact that it helps in explanation of the significance of the research through the presentation of valid arguments. The main problem that is being addressed in this research is in the financial sector and the purpose statement is to address the payment issues faced by students in Universities. Previously before advancement of technology, many people had to use the bank to make all their financial transactions which has several drawbacks. One, for example, had to physically go to the bank to access any of the services offered as the system now in Cameroon where students have to queue in the banks to make payments.
The research method that I used is the descriptive research method and the survey method is to be used to collect data. A descriptive research method is the method where one can depict the participants in a certain way (Kothari, 2004). On the other hand, surveys are used to collect data from people using a variety of methods. The reason descriptive research method was chosen in the research is because it has a high degree of accuracy. Use of surveys for data collection is preferred because one needs to understand the situation from the perspective of the students and staff in the financial departments.
A research design can be referred to as the overall strategy one uses in order to be able to evaluate the components of the study for the purpose of addressing the problems of the research and analysis the data collected (Bryman, (2016). The research design is the descriptive design and the primary technique I chose is surveys to be administered to students and staff. This research design works best because it is accurate and one can get the views of a sample of university students and staff in Cameroon. The research approach and methodology will help in exploring the research questions of the study.
Approach Statement
The research study will focus on understanding the challenges that students and university staff experience when working with the manual banking system. The study will focus on providing a possible solution through the use of an integrated banking system to save time spent on queuing in banks and going to the banks for statements. An online banking system will help students to make payments easily to their universities in Cameroon wherever they are. The study will make use of both a conceptual and a theoretical framework. The conceptual framework is developed by a researcher with an aim of solving a particular problem. The problem that is being solved here is the challenge caused by the manual banking system used by universities in Cameroon. The conceptual framework will help to understand how the variables connect with one another. The conceptual framework will function as the map in this study (Ravitch & Carl, 2016). The theoretical framework is used where one wants to base a study on theories and general representation of several items. The conceptual framework is important in finding a way to address the problem at hand while theoretical framework assists in relating the given problem to several theories and previous studies (Ravitch & Carl, 2016). The study will use both of these approaches to show context of the study and to understand and explain the context of the particular study. The theoretical framework will be retrieved from previous literature which has theories and other analytical models. The following are the steps taken in the design of the frameworks:
· Examination of the research problems
· Brainstorming on the key variables in this study
· Review of the relevant literature
· Listing of the important variables and constructs
References
Arcega, C. K., Datinguinoo, E., Guerra, J., Guno, C., Mayuga, H. J., Villamena, E., &Manongsong, J. L. (2015). Computerized vs. Non-computerized Accounting System of Small and Medium Enterprises in Lipa City, Philippines: A Comparative Analysis. Asia Pacific Journal of Academic Research in Business Administration, 1(1).
Bryman, A. (2016). Social research methods. Oxford university press.
Khalil, Nor, M., Sutanonpaiboon, J., &HamimahMastor, N. (2010). Malay, Chinese, and internet
banking.Chinese Management Studies, 4(2), 141-153.
Kothari, C. R. (2004). Research methodology: Methods and techniques. New Age International.
Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2016). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological.
Wang, D. H. M., & Huynh, Q. L. (2013). Effects of environmental uncertainty on computerized accounting system adoption and firm performance.
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