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The accounting profession is facing a critical turning point, on the background of global rapid pace technological changes. At the same time young accountants and employers, as well as accountants’ professional body are aware of witnessing challenging, dynamic times which greatly redesign future career patterns and pathways. Accountant’s role moved from a static one into a key advisor of the business, due to the broad range of skills to be continuously acquired, learning and digitization opportunities. The paper attempts to provide an insight into these specific challenges, to shape the future patterns of the accounting landscape and the specific skills and knowledge to be held by accountants. First, it has been synthesized the latest trends in the accountancy profession, in terms of digital technologies, automation of manual processes and personal skills requested from young accountants. Then it has been performed a desk-research, in a comparative fashion, meant to analyze the career ambitions and work preferences of young professionals, in parallel with employers’ specific requirements and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legislation of European Union member states is not harmonized in terms of defining, evaluating and addressing fraud, lacking a unique, generally accepted definition. The paper has several aims. First, it has been provided a comprehensive definition of fraud as an unlawful act, by gathering the views of several audit, accountant and fraud examiners professional bodies. Then it has been presented the fraud triangle, the recurrent patterns of fraud committing and the profile of the fraudster by investigating past fraud episodes within the financial industry and the economic field, in general. Further, the paper synthesizes the three main fraud typologies which are widely accepted among practitioners and professional bodies and explains the characteristics of financial statements fraud and respectively of the use of internal IT system for committing frauds. As digital technology is increasingly embedded into traditional financial products and services features, fraud-related risks are imposing more challenges for regulators, financial institutions’ boards and internal audit departments. The paper emphasizes the critical role to be fulfilled by internal audit departments and stresses the need for maintaining a high-quality human resource with updated knowledge and skills related to financial industry specificity and fraud risk detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study consists in analyzing the importance of the exchange rate forecast using the Box-Jenkins models, also known as Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models. The first part of the paper presents the main research in this field, which can be classified in two categories (studies applying classical methods, such as Box-Jenkins models and studies which rely on sophisticated prediction tools), and summarizes the main findings of some of the studies applying Box-Jenkins models. In the second part of the paper we performed a EUR/RON exchange rate analysis and forecasting, based on testing several AR, MA and ARMA candidate processes, in order to find out the best fitting model specification. We adopted the following strategy: i) an initial time series had been used for testing various model specifications, identify the best performing one and making a forecast of the EUR/RON exchange rate; ii) after comparing the accuracy of this forecast with the real level recorded by the exchange rate at end of May 2018, we conducted a second forecast, for the period September 2018 - March 2019. The initial time series employed has daily frequency and covers the timeframe July 4, 2005 - December 5, 2017, while the second time series used covers the period July 4, 2005 - August 31, 2018. The empirical findings have passed the goodness-of-fit tests and show a good predictive power. The first forecast performed for a six month period (December 2017 - May 2018) has indicated a slow pace, persistent increase of the EUR/RON exchange rate, which was confirmed by the expectations of market participants (financial analysts, banks' research departments). The second forecast, which covers the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, indicates a similar slow-pace rising trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates a sample of 25 European systemically important banks, in terms of performance in fulfilling their financial intermediation function. Performance has been measured by relying on a Malmquist productivity index with panel data, to account for productivity changes over time and to decompose the main sources of changes into the catch-up effect and technological progress. As the database covered the 2007-2016 timeframe, we were able to investigate if the impact of the financial crisis appears in the data. The findings obtained for each year confirmed that the financial crisis exerted a significant influence on banks' productivity which witnessed a decline for most banks in the sample in 2009 relative to 2008. Some systemic banks detached themselves as they exhibited increases of productivity during most time periods considered. The 10-year average levels recorded by the Malmquist index and its two components show that technical efficiency improvements slightly outperformed technological changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper fills the gap of the scarce economic literature devoted to the investigation of systemic banks' prudential features. The statistical analysis gravitates around those banks designated by the Basel Committee of Banking Supervision as global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). It had been considered a comprehensive sample of 28 European systemic banks whose key financial indicators (capital adequacy, profitability, liquidity, and asset quality) became inputs for the peer analysis performed. The exploratory research consisted in performing a cluster analysis, to reveal if there is a pattern of similitude or, on the contrary, high heterogeneity between the different intrinsic financial characteristics of systemically important banks. The findings indicated a constant pattern of ressemblance between several G-SIBs, which persistently joined the same group for most years considered. From a temporal perspective, the year 2009 witnessed the highest dissimilarity and heterogeneity between European G-SIBs, a direct effect of the impact the financial turmoil had exerted on banks' balance sheets. By performing an in-depth, individual analysis of the financial features at the core of banks' grouping into homogenous clusters, a third conclusion arises. Several G-SIBs operating in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and Germany seem to be the best performers as they depict a sound and profitable business model, for 2016-year end data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of efficiency in the field of banking activity is widely debated because it is perceived as being a leading factor, with impact on banks' financial performance and soundness. Paper's theme is in line with current concerns expressed by European and national regulators and supervisory bodies, which are strengthening supervisory practices for best assessing the risk profile and potential exposure to shocks of large, systemic banks. Paper's focus is on a sample of representative Romanian banks, which are classified by the National Bank of Romania as domestic systemically important banks. The research goal is to examine to what extent Romanian systemic banks efficiently fulfilled their basic financial intermediation function in the last fourteen years. Efficiency had been measured by relying on a well known non-parametric method called Data Envelopment Analysis, under a financial intermediation approach, with an output oriented model and variable returns of scale. The estimated efficiency scores show that one systemic bank had never been placed on the efficiency frontier, as it persistently failed to maximize the amount of output variables. The remaining banks in the sample positioned themselves on the frontier in 3 out of 14 years. However, their individual efficiency scores recorded an increase one year from another, at end-2016 ranging in the proximity of the efficiency frontier. The years witnessing most cases of efficiency are 2012, 2013 and 2016. Another result of the analysis is related to identifying systemic banks' scale efficiency. The years 2010, 2011 and 2014 depicted decreasing returns to scale for half of the systemic banks in the sample, signaling that these banks are too large for obtaining advantages from scale. A single bank depicts constant returns to scale in each and every year considered, meaning that it is scale efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research question the paper aims to investigate is whether increasing awareness and implication of civil society's representatives into the financial markets field will determine financial institutions to adjust their products, services and practices to a more socially and environmentally responsible way. In our scientific approach we have started from the finding of a low stage of civil society intervention in the financial world and the need for a more obvious manifestation of civism in this thematic area. Recent post crisis developments highlight the need for adopting a more robust attitude and discourse of civil society on the issues related to financial markets and institutions. The paper will comprehensively review the current state of art of the civil society's position as a vector of opinion and action related to the sustainable business models, products and practices in the financial industry. The contemporaneous involvement of civil society's representatives will be assessed differentiated, through a multi-field approach, by looking at the three segments of the financial market: the banking sector, the capital market and the insurance sector. In addition, we'll try to highlight if civil society might position itself at the core of changes in conventional banking, by influencing banking practices. This issue stands from the numerous lawsuits that European Union customers have opened against abusive banking practices. Another direction of study is represented by the civil society monetization, consisting in the mobilization of financial resources in the economy, without the traditional appeal to financial intermediation, which is expected to create a major shift in the sustainable financial industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]