Perceptions of online fraud and the impact on the countermeasures for the control of online fraud in Saudi Arabian financial institutions

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThis study addresses the impact of countermeasures in the control and prevention of online fraud in Saudi Arabia and the influence of the environmental context. Combatting online fraud is facilitated when the public is fully educated and is aware of its types and of the prevention methods available. People are reliant on the Internet; the possibility of being breached by hackers and fraudsters is growing, especially as socialising, online shopping and banking are carried out through personal computers or mobile devices. Online fraud has been described as an epidemic that has spread to most online activities. Its prevalence has been noted to be in regions where there is high adoption of e-commerce, and, along with it, large online financial transactions. The argument is therefore the measures taken are either are inadequate or have failed to effectively address all the issues because of the organisational and environmental context of the country. This research aims to examine online fraud perceptions and the countermeasures designed and used by financial institutions in Saudi Arabia to control and prevent online fraud in its environmental context, to examine the effectiveness/impact of the countermeasures and to examine the factors that may affect/influence the impact of the countermeasures. The qualitative method approach was chosen to ensure balanced coverage of the subject matter. The nature of the research requires a broader, in-depth, examination of the experiences of the participants from their own perspective. Meanwhile levels of awareness are low, because of lack of knowledge and training, a lack of government sensitisation and the religious inclinations of the population. The findings also confirm the efforts of organisations to put in place countermeasures using various technological means, coupled with procedural controls and checks. The measures create obstacles to most customers, who find it cumbersome to engage in online activities because of those procedures and checks. The findings also show two types of regulations: government and organisational rules, with different foci and purposes, which are mostly centred on the monitoring of Internet operations and operational guidelines. The enforcement of rules in the light of prosecuting offenders has also been minimal and passive. The countermeasures of most banks/organisations mostly focus on prevention and detection. However, the findings suggest that the activities in each component and their interrelationships have a collective impact on combatting online fraud. The success of any effort or approach to combat fraudulent activities therefore depends on the activities of the four countermeasure components

Investigating Identity Fraud Management Practices in E-tail sector:A Systematic Review

Purpose: Identity fraud is a growing issue for online retail organisations. The literature on this issue is scattered, and none of the studies presents a holistic view of identity fraud management practices in the online retail context. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the identity fraud management practices and present a comprehensive set of practices for e-tail sector. Design/methodology/approach: A systematic literature review approach was adopted, and the articles were selected through pre-set inclusion criteria. The authors synthesised existing literature to investigate identity fraud management in e-tail sector. Findings: The research finds that literature on practices for identity fraud management is scattered. The findings also reveal that firms assume identity fraud issues as a technological challenge, which is one of the major reasons for a gap in effective management of identity frauds. This research suggests e-tailers to deal this issue as a management challenge and counter strategies should be developed in technological, human and organisational aspects. Research limitations/implications: This study is limited to the published sources of data. Studies, based on empirical data, will be helpful to support the argument of this study; additionally, future studies are recommended to include a wide number of databases. Practical implications: This research will help e-tail organisations to understand the whole of identity fraud management and help them develop and implement a comprehensive set of practices at each stage, for effective management identity frauds. Originality/value: This research makes unique contributions by synthesising existing literature at each stage of fraud management and encompasses social, organisational and technological aspects. It will also help academicians understanding a holistic view of available research and opens new lines for future research.</p

Explaining online communities’ contribution to socio-economic development

In recent times, online communities are emerging as a potential source of information technology-led socio-economic development by enabling new generative mechanisms. Existing studies provide useful insights yet do not recognize the contributions of online communities in achieving socio-economic development. To address this knowledge gap, this paper documents a netnography study conducted on an online community for teaching the youth how to earn income online legitimately. We applied the theoretical notion of IT affordances to examine the possibilities for socio-economic action via online communities in the context of a developing country. Preliminary findings show how the online community contributes to socio-economic development by fostering collaboration, information sharing, and learning leading to income generation

A TAXONOMY OF MACHINE LEARNING-BASED FRAUD DETECTION SYSTEMS

As fundamental changes in information systems drive digitalization, the heavy reliance on computers today significantly increases the risk of fraud. Existing literature promotes machine learning as a potential solution approach for the problem of fraud detection as it is able able to detect patterns in large datasets efficiently. However, there is a lack of clarity and awareness on which components and functionalities of machine learning-based fraud detection systems exist and how these systems can be classified consistently. We draw on 54 identified relevant machine learning-based fraud detection systems to address this research gap and develop a taxonomic scheme. By deriving three archetypes of machine learning-based fraud detection systems, the taxonomy paves the way for research and practice to understand and advance fraud detection knowledge to combat fraud and abuse

Strategies for Recruiting Cybersecurity Professionals in the Financial Service Industry

The cybersecurity market is the fastest growing market in the United States; as such, leaders in financial institutions recognize their businesses are vulnerable, as money is accessible within computerized banking systems. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore what strategies financial service leaders- use to recruit cybersecurity professionals. The conceptual framework for this study was the hierarchy of needs and stakeholder management theory. Data collection involved company archival documents and semistructured, open-ended interviews with 5 financial service leaders in the Midlands area of South Carolina who recruited skilled cybersecurity professionals to support long-term business sustainability. Coding, clustering, and theme development evolved through coding key words and actions, drawing ideas together into clusters, and evolving the prominent ideas into themes. During data analysis, the theoretical propositions underwent a sequential process, which included coding the data by hand. The use of member checking and methodological triangulation increased the trustworthiness of the study. Analysis revealed 3 themes: increased training, broadened social networking, and improved communication. Financial service leaders can use training to educate and recruit new cybersecurity professionals. Also, findings suggest the need for training to improve social networking and communicate as a team to increase profitability. The findings from this study may contribute to social change by helping business owners recruit skilled professionals to prevent or reduce cybersecurity threats

Investigating the factors affecting customers’ trust and acceptance of online banking: The case of Saudi Arabia

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThe need for online banking technology in the banking industry is important to allow financial institutions to serve their customers worldwide, without having the need to be present in person or face-to-face to benefit from the service. Despite the investment in informational technology and information system infrastructure by Saudi Arabian financial institutions, the Saudi banks have lagged their Western counterparts when it comes to provision of online banking services. Given a relatively recent adoption of online banking in Saudi Arabia, consumer trust in online banking is a critical challenge facing bank managers, warranting further research. The aim of this research is to develop a framework to improve consumer trust toward online banking services and its affect consumer intentions to use the online banking service and e-WOM. The literature included the assessment of relevant theories including social cognitive theory, technology acceptance model and commitment trust theory. These theories formed the basis of formulation of research framework, including development of 12 research hypotheses. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, relationship termination cost, shared value, communication, privacy and demographic factors all have an important role in influencing the extent of trust and the subsequent intention of customers to engage in and use online banking services provided by the financial institutions. When it comes to the literature gap, there remains a relative lack of existence of research on the subject of consumer trust in online banking within Saudi Arabia (Zhou, 2012; Alanezi and Brooks, 2014; AL-Malkawi et al., 2016), which presents a gap in the literature warranting further research. Moreover, most of the prior research on the subject of consumer trust in online banking has concentrated on the information cues such as reputation and information quality (Montazemi and Qahri-Saremi, 2015). This is alongside relatively little attention given to other factors such as perceived usefulness, ease of use, shared value, and privacy/security, which are crucial factors in online banking services (Fatima, 2011; Aloul., 2012; Montazemi and Qahri-Saremi, 2015). Regarding methodology, the positivist research philosophy, deductive approach, survey questionnaire and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques were undertaken. A key rationale for selection of such a methodology is the review of relevant literature, which led to development of research hypotheses that are tested through the survey technique, which is consistent with positivist and deductive research approach. The survey questionnaire request was sent online to 800 research participants (users of online services in Saudi Arabia). Out of these 800, 585 responded (indicating a response rate of an impressive 73%). The response rate was improved through giving regular reminders to the research participants who had not responded to the survey earlier. The findings of this research support the argument that trust in e-bank website play an important role in maintaining long term relationship with customers. Therefore, online banks who deal with their customers in a confidential, transparent and honest manner and ultimately protect the consumers‘ interests are likely to contribute to greater adoption of online banking by customers in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, it is also concluded that perceived ease of use, trust in online banking website, trust in technology, relationship termination cost, privacy/security, shared value, and communication have positive and significant effect on customer trust in e-bank website, intention to use online banking, and e-WOM

Identity Fraud Management: A Qualitative Study into the Managerial Practices in E-tail Sector

E-commerce has offered many opportunities to business firms to minimise their operational costs, enhance the customer base and develop better customer relationships. These opportunities have also created some challenges, especially those related to identity frauds. Therefore, this study aims at understanding identity fraud management and analyses existing managerial practices at large e-tailers to suggest improvements. To attain the objectives of this study, the qualitative approach of data collection was adopted. The interview method of data collection helped to get in-depth information about the context under study. The case study research approach was chosen to investigate the what, how and why of the issues and practices of identity fraud management. The data were collected at three large e-tailers based in the UK, in the course of 33 semi-structured interviews. For the analysis, thematic approach was adopted and the results were processed using single and cross-case analysis. The findings revealed that identity fraud was one of the biggest challenges for e-tailers, as they are losing a significant amount of their revenues. Various types and methods of identity frauds have been explored. The results show that the case firms have the process of managing identity frauds, and the stages of fraud management suggested by Wilhelm (2004) were present. It was also found that e-tailers prioritised the technological aspects of fraud management, while the developing the skills and awareness of their staff was not given required focus, which may be one of the possible reasons for the existing deficiencies in fraud management. In fact, this study has found that human factor is a critical aspect of fraud management. It has also been established that customer education is not carried out effectively, despite the fact that identity theft mostly occurs at the customer side. A more active and explicit stance against identity fraud is recommended. However, because the e-tailers operate in a highly competitive environment, there is a trade-off between putting up extra security layers and the ease for customers for making a purchase, making identity fraud management ever more challenging for them. Present study contributes to the body of literature by understanding identity fraud management and analysing current managerial practices at large e-tailers. Reflecting on the theoretical and empirical data, e-tailers are forwarded some novel practices for better management of identity frauds. Additionally, e-tailers are also suggested improvements in existing managerial practices. This study may help e-tailers to effectively manage identity frauds, which will result in reduced fraud losses, better firm image and favourable customer relations and offering the society a secure environment for online shopping. Finally, a conceptual framework has been suggested for effective management of identity frauds in e-tail context. Managerial practices are suggested and guidelines are given at each stage of the framework for effective management of identity frauds

Determinants of ICT adoption by small and medium enterprises in Pietermaritzburg.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been a major contributor to world economic growth. ICT plays a vital role when it comes to the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). In developed countries, SMEs are making use of ICTs to support their business functions although this has not been the case in most developing countries. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) argues that the survival rate of start-up businesses is generally poor with SMEs in developing countries performing even worse than the standard survival rates. ICT can be used as a tool to improve the performance and survival rate of SMEs in developing countries. SMEs in developing countries are lacking behind when it comes to the adoption of ICT. This study aims to investigate the determinants that influence the intention to adopt ICT by SMEs in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The study made use of quantitative methods as its fundamental research approach. 227 SME owners in Pietermaritzburg were surveyed using a closed-ended questionnaire. The Technology, Organisation and Environment framework was used as a lens through which to understand the study. The TOE theoretical framework is largely used as a process to study the adoption of innovation at a firm level. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach was applied in order to analyse the data from the respondents. The study revealed that Technology Context and Organisation Context (-0.221) are significant determinants that influence the intention to adopt ICT amongst SMEs. Technology Context is the most influential determinant with a regression weight of 0.938, and the Environment Context is an insignificant determinant due to the lack of government support. The study contributes towards the understanding on the important determinants that influences the adoption of ICTs in Pietermaritzburg. The results of this study can assist service providers and government on how to help uplift SMEs. It further shines the light on the lack of the government support towards SMEs.List of Abbreviations on page iv