Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration,Mid Sweden University in ÖstersundSpring term 2008Title: Abolishment of statutory audit ? a qualitative research on banks attitude when credit rating small businessesAuthor: Rima Harouki, Carina HoffmannSupervisor: Anna-Maria JanssonBackground & problem: In Sweden the statutory audit has been mandatory for every corporation since 1983. With the membership in European Union it became possible to allow exception from statutory audit for small businesses, according to the fourth commission of EG. Today, in the European Union, there are few countries that still have statutory audit for smaller businesses, Sweden is one of them. There are discussions about whether Sweden should follow the trend of abolishment and an analysis management by the justice of the Supreme Court Bo Svensson was recently presented, which ended in the conclusion that statutory audit ought to be abolished.

ABSTRACTTitle: Basel II ? The New Basel Capital Accord and its influence on small Swedish banks and their retail banking and risk management.Seminar: May 24th, 2007Course: FEK318 Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 10 Swedish creditsAuthors: Mattias Kjellberg, David Uhlmann & Ivana ZubacAdvisor: Joakim WinborgKeywords: Capital cover, capital requirements, Basel II, credit giving, credit risk, risk management, retail banking, small banks, pillar 2Problem: What influence does Basel II and the new updated management of credit risks in pillar 1 and the active risk control in pillar 2 have on small Swedish banks retail banking?Purpose: Our essay seeks to explore what influence pillar 1 and the new updated management of credit risks in the new capital accord Basel II have on small Swedish banks and what influence pillar 2 have. We also want to explain if Basel II has influences on small Swedish banks credit analysis and possible effects in their risk management and pricing.Methodology: In our essay we use an inductive approach and our chosen research method is the qualitative one. We have chosen to look into four small Swedish banks, and the empirical data is obtained from telephone interviews with selected respondents from Länsförsäkringar Bank, SkandiaBanken, GE Money Bank and ICA Banken.Conclusions:? The work with credit scoring does not get influenced by Basel II if the Standardised Approach is chosen.? Banks that?ve early implemented high technological systems in the organization, that small banks normally do, have gotten an easier transition to Basel II.? Basel II will result in a risk adjusted pricing and a more fair credit market.? Internal Ratings-based Approaches is very demanding to develop, but at the same time it?s a more risk sensitive approach.? Pillar 2 results in a more sophisticated work for the small banks.? Basel II results in a further price press on residential loans in Sweden..

The subject of sms-loans is examined by using primary and secondary sources?. This form of credit is formally independent from other obligations with a very short credit period and the amount of the loan is low. This form of credits is applied by mobile phones and on the internet by several companies, some of them are presented in this essay. These type of creditors do not come under any sanctions from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority as is customary for other creditors, they only need to register.

Large companies in today?s business environment are to a great extent depending on their credit score by rating institutes like Moody?s and Standard & Poor?s. There is however indications that these big institutes are not always rating companies accurately. This is why this thesis aims at developing a new credit rating model, CRITA-Score, with the objective of determining a company?s financial health more accurately.

During the recent financial crisis there has been an intense debate regarding small enterprise?s possibilities to borrow money. Statements from interest groups and results from surveys among Swedish non-financial companies indicate that their situation has worsened. Credit worthy enterprises that under normal circumstances would not have any problems getting financing are now facing financial difficulties. In contrast, an economic report from the Bank of Sweden concludes that Sweden does not suffer from a severe credit rationing due to the financial crisis.

The aim is to develop a new decision-making model for credit-loans. The model will be specific for credit applicants of the OKQ8 bank, becauseit is based on data of earlier applicants of credit from the client (the bank). The final model is, in effect, functional enough to use informationabout a new applicant as input, and predict the outcome to either the good risk group or the bad risk group based on the applicant?s properties.The prediction may then lay the foundation for the decision to grant or deny credit loan.Because of the skewed distribution in the response variable, different sampling techniques are evaluated. These include oversampling with SMOTE, random undersampling and pure oversampling in the form of scalar weighting of the minority class.

Background and problem: Financial reports are created for the users as decision support. Stakeholders are often subjects to information asymmetry. Banks represent one of the primary stakeholders and financiers of a company, and place great emphasis on financial reports in their credit assessment process. The question is, however, how useful the financial information actually is. According to previous research, banks consider accounting information as troublesome in some respects, mostly due to accounting choices and judgments.

The purpose of this study is to highlight how a ring road and an external retail establishment may affect the city commerce. Umeå is the study object with interesting undergoing changes including a new external retail area south of the city and a new transport route that will lead the through traffic around the city.The study is based on a review of previous studies and a qualitative method. Four interviews were conducted with people who have a connection to commerce and/or municipal planning and where considered able to contribute with rich and relevant information. The result shows that the commerce in Umeå will be significantly strengthened in the context of a new external commercial establishment when the city?s overall attractiveness increases.

AbstractThis paper intends, through a qualitative study to examine and analyze how a particular type of financial firms cooperate, and what this entails. The case study issue which shall be answered is "What does the firms Credit Suisse and Orn & Cie SA gain out of cooperating with each other?". By setting the general theories in the subject joint ventures, partnerships, against the empirical material gathered via interviews and data collection in Geneva, Switzerland  answers to what the cooperation between the two parties has resulted in for the respective companies has been found. The survey shows that the prevailing model of cooperation creates significant benefits for the two companies.

The new Swedish Companies Act allows Swedish companies to issue two instruments that were previously prohibited: mandatory convertibles and participating debentures. The aim of the thesis is to conduct a cross sectional study of Swedish corporate hybrid securities, especially in the light of the new Companies Act. The cross sectional study also includes areas such as credit rating, accounting and tax. The thesis concludes that it is possible, under Swedish law, to issue corporate hybrid securities that qualify for both high equity credit and tax deductible interest payments. The use of certain hybrid provisions are, however, restrained by Swedish company law.

The interest in businesses active on the countryside and their funding situation has increased in recent years. In a survey, conducted by Leif Berndtsson (2003), it was reported that there is a lack of external capital in rural areas. According to Berndtsson (2003) the lack of external capital inhibits the rural firm?s growth. The essay attempts to answer whether the shortage of external capital is a factor that inhibits development for rural businesses.

The new accounting standards IFRS and IAS was implemented in January 2005, the purpose was to harmonize accounting standards world wide. As a result of these new rules the real estate companies are allowed to appraise real estates assets at market value. It has long been debated whether this appraisal fulfils the requirements for relevance, reliability and comparability.The paper attends to how banks control the information given by the real estate companies in the process of credit granting. As an introduction we describe the purpose of accounting and the problematic´s about appraisals with market values. Further on there is a discussion on which factors are taken into consideration when banks grant credits.The study is built on interviews at three different commercial banks.

Managing credit risk might be the single most important business area for any commercial bank. The assessment of "good" and "bad" corporate clients is a important task for a creditor. A bad debtor is a corporate client with hardships in meeting the continous claims (interest payments) that a creditor requires. One way of evaluating or separating a "bad" client from a "good" client is to assess the propensity for the client to file for bankruptcy. This thesis examines 226 firms in the Swedsh market in the quest of predicting corporate bankruptcy.

The effect of the salary system and age on the internal and external motivationThe purpose of the study was to examine how a fixed salary with commission and only a fixed salary, and age affect the internal and external work motivation of sellers. This was studied by a questionnaire and participants were sellers in the call center industry in Sweden. In total there were 112 sellers from nine different companies that responded to the survey. The respondents were divided into groups based on pay systems and age. The measuring instrument used was the Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale which classifies the motivation of internal and external based on six subscales.

Abstract We have in this thesis examined two elite hockey clubs in the Swedish Elite League, Brynäs IF and Linköpings HC. Our questions revolve around how they set themselves to bring in an external owner of the club. Our aim was to examine how Linköping and Brynäs stands on the issue of the external owners of the club, which is currently regulated by Riksidrottsförbundets 51/49%-rule which means that the club must control at least 51% of the club while external shareholders can take up to 49 %. Then, we compare the clubs with each other. Interviewees have been clubs club CEO:s and supporters club chairman.