Principles Of Professional Practice In Financial Service Industry

External forces affecting Moelis Australia

Discuss about the Financial relationships between neurologists.

The report under consideration is prepared to highpoint the principles of professional practice to work in the financial service industry. It is based on the knowledge gained from the working of Moelis Australia, a giant in financial service industry. The report presents various analyses related to the industry highlighting the external forces and the main sectors. The compliance issues related with industry legislations, company policies and procedures and code of ethics are mentioned. The sustainability of the industry is well discussed along with various strategies to incorporate models of team working, work planning and improvement of personal competency to achieve a better working environment.

1. a) External forces affecting Moelis Australia

Being a financial service industry, Moelis Australia is highly impacted by the external forces both favourably and unfavourably. The favourable factors consist economic growth, positive publicity made by media, political policies made in line with business strategies, appreciation of Australian dollar etc. Out of the negative impacting external factors the major affect is made by wrong image created by media, high inflation leading to lower advisory and asset management services being taken by company etc.

1. b) Sectors of operation and inter relationships

The main sectors or segments in which Moelis Australia operates are:

• Corporate advisory
• Asset management
• Equity

 The inter relationship between the segments can be explained as follows:

The equity sector helps handling the equity advisory for the corporate advisory sector and the later sector then helps for grasping the asset management investment opportunities. The cycle goes on when asset management adds to the capital of capital advisory segment to help it in provision of better advisory. The three segments provide Moelis with a multi brand tag and can manage shared services.

1. c) Role of banks and auditors

 The role that banks play can be stated as follows:

• Banks enable the concern to freely lend money to be used while providing the different services of asset management, advisory and equity.
• Through banks, Moelis can comfortably manage its payments and receipts.
• In Australia, even banks are into the business of financial services, and hence can work out as business partners.

The role of auditors is very significant in giving an independent opinion on the true and fair state of financial affairs of Moelis Australia. This helps the concern in providing a concrete belief to the investors, clients, financers etc. this boosts the business of entity.

1. a) Legislations, regulations and code of ethics

Being a company working in financial service industry, Moelis Australia is bound by the regulations set by the financial system regulators, the code of banking practice, conduct of business rules, know your client regulations, contract laws etc. as many employees are hired, the legislations regarding work health and safety, worker’s compensation, anti-discrimination are applicable.

1. b) Process for proper implementation and follow-up of legislations

In order to properly setup, clarify and update the work practices as required by above laws, its necessary to properly set up a policy and procedure charter in a written form, with a clarity in assignment of duties, procedures of operation, and respective work schedules. These parameters must be clearly communicated along with a provision of both written and oral instruction to the employees. Apart from this, a managed workplace should be maintained with due regards being given to ethics.

1. c) Code of practice applied at Moelis Australia

Main sectors in which Moelis Australia operates

The basic ethical practices being applied and followed involve:

• Confidentiality, i.e. non-sharing of client’s information gathered during business relationship.
• Professionalism, i.e. performance of duties with due diligence.
• Objectivity, i.e. unbiased and unprejudiced approach.
• Competency, i.e. having the skills required to perform work.
• Integrity, i.e. working honestly.

1. a) Sustainability policies, strategies and impacts

Sustainability refers to the ability of an entity to function and achieve goals with creating a minimal negative impact on society and environment. Various strategies need to be followed for attaining sustainability being:

• Discouraging business relations and transactions that negatively impact society and environment.
• Increasing efficiency in using IT resources in order to reduce the emittance of harmful radiations.
• Creating awareness among clients and employees regarding energy conservation.

1. b) Environmental sustainability

Environment sustainability refers to the sustainable activities that focus primarily on reducing the adverse impacts on the environment. By promoting environment sustainability, Moelis can reduce its cost with increased efficiency and improved stakeholder relationships. The major potentials involve,

• Green computing highly recommended as IT oriented.
• Use of solar energy panels
• Reducing the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide to reduce the greenhouse effect and depletion of ozone layer. (as per National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act, 2007)

1. c) Triple Bottom Line Principles

Triple bottom line principle is a framework of accounting that focuses on three significant organisational success components, People, Planet and Profit. This method helps the organisations to measure their working effects on the environment, people and the financial stability. This way organisation can work out mechanisms to improve. Incorporating this involve identifying the groups that form people, planet and environment and analysing the effects of organisation’s working on them. The next step identifies the organisational flow of renewable and non- renewable resources and strategizing the substitution of non-renewable resources (Vogel, 2014).

Further methods constitute change management practices, involvement of local community, use of alternative fuels etc.

1. a) Relevant documents and reports that could impact work effectiveness and compliance

As per applicable Australian accounting standards that are consistent with International Financial Reporting Standards, various disclosures and documents are to be made. The documents that are needed to be maintained to ensure effectiveness of work and compliance include the charter of company’s policies and business strategies, the document of overall legislations and regulations applicable, written code of ethics and proper disclosure of financial results and applicable accounting policies (Cvetanovich, Chalmers, and Bach 2015).

1. b) Balance Sheet

Moelis Australia
Balance Sheet
For the Period 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017
ASSETS ($)		LIABILITIES ($)
Current Asset		Current Liability
Cash at Bank                    22,500		Short-Term Loans       10,000
Stock on Hand                    8,750		GST Collected               9,885
Petty Cash                           1100		Bank Loan                   75,000
Accounts Receivable (Debtors)                               950		Accounts Payable          6,975 (Creditors)
GST Paid                          15,249		Total current liabilities	1,01,860
Total Current Asset	48,549
Non-Current Asset
Plant & Equipment        110,750 Less: Depreciation         (12,540)
Total Non-Current Asset	98210
		Owner Equity
		Capital                         30,000
		Retained Profit            14,899	44,899
TOTAL ASSETS	1,46,759	TOTAL LIABILITIES PLUS, OWNER EQUITY	1,46,759

Information Presentation

The various ratios needed to present the information are as follows:

1) Current ratio:          Current assets             =          48,549             = 0.4766

                       Current liabilities                                  1, 01,860

2) Quick ratio:    Current assets (excluding inventory and     =     39799       = 0.3907

   Rrepayments)

Current liabilities                                       1, 01,860

3) Debt to equity ratio:    Total liabilities   x 100        =   1, 01,860    = 2.2686

                                     Total equity                        44,899

1. a) Feedback

As evident from the ratios above, the company might face cash crunch or liquidity issues. The reason is quite evident. The company’s quick ratio as well as the current ratio is far below than the standard benchmark set for same. The current ratio should be 1 or more than 1, but it’s just 0.4766. The debt-equity ratio on the other hand is as per the benchmarks (Li, 2015).

1. b) In order to improve efficiency and resolve issues it is required out of every team member to effectively communicate in the team building and learning process. When a certain class of employees from every department are involved, then the communicators should avoid technical jargons to enable equal understanding. Moreover, an effective two-way communication is well required. All the information that seems relevant should be circulated.
2. c) Identifying and resolving problems

Role of auditors and regulations applicable

The budgets that are made in advance act as a super tool to identify and resolve problems. Every responsible person should look for the areas that vary significantly in operations with the budget. After the identification is made, the reasons for the issues should be identified. Communications should be made among team members and proper strategies and plan should be worked out for the resolution of problems. The chosen plan and strategy should be implemented and the monitoring for results should be done (Grant, 2016).

1. d) Being a role model

To act with an ace level of efficiency that helps in achievement of goals together with enhancement of company’s image in the whole industry, makes a person role model for the whole group. Being such a person involves harmonisation of whole group by properly segregating work according to the requisite skills possessed. The leader needs to organise periodic meetings, promote friendly competition, ensure clarity of communication along with respect of everyone’s views and promoting the potential members forward (Bartram, and Wang, 2015).

1. a) Identification and planning of work schedule

As the client wants to meet in two weeks’ time, the first and foremost task should be development of a business contract. The business contract must contain all the details regarding the business requirements, conditions, work profile etc. Discussions with bank should be made regarding their roles. The team meetings should be conducted for discussion regarding the deadlines that could be promised to the clients (DeFusco, et al., 2015).

1. b) Team responsibility matrix

For development of a perfect team for effective provision of client’s demands, the company must first understand the tasks that are required to be done. A checklist is required to make stating the tasks to be done and the employee who is best suited to complete the task. A meeting of the team should be conducted, wherein discussion is made regarding the time the members shall take to complete the assigned task. The priorities must be highlighted, and resources must be first assigned to the priority tasks. The deficiency in resources both manpower and other should be analysed in advance and filling of deficiency should be managed (Grant, 2016).

1. c) Service Improvement

The team responsibility matrix generated consists of the employees who are well suited to perform their respective tasks. They should be encouraged to monitor the work being done by them. Any lacking they notice should be noted down. A new series of plan should be made to settle the discrepancies. The plan framed should be discussed to analyse any loopholes. After the plan is finalised, it should be implemented, and its evaluation should also be done (Campbell, et al. 2016).

1. d) Adapting to changes in technology

Ethical practices in financial services industry

All the process that is done in the entire organisation should be called for a feedback. That feedback shall show the areas that require development. Any activity that is working in an outdated manner requires technology advancement. Technology advancement shall have certain impacts:

• It shall call for change in the working style.
• The change shall create stress and insecurity among employees.
• The insecurity or stress could be dealt with proper communication and deliberating benefits to the staff.

1. a) SWOT analysis

Strength	Weakness
1) The foremost advantage of working in Moelis is getting full exposure to the latest trends in financial service industry. 2) The personal analysis calls for managing the team in a really effective manner. 3) Further, the work allows access to personal resources of entity like internet connection, knowledge base, case studies, client experiences etc. 4) Effective management of team is well evident and huge appreciation is also received.	1) taking clients that are geographically isolated is generally avoided. 2) poor technical jargon is what others see as a weakness. 3) negative work habits involve working overtime at the cost of health. 4) unhelpful personality traits arise on loosing temperament while explaining same thing for more than 5-6 times.
Opportunity	Threat
1) the financial service industry is witnessing super new and fast technology that can be harnessed. 2) being a player in the industry for past several years, a wide list of clients dealt successfully stand as an opportunity. 3) the new trends in the industry are related to more use of IT in service provision through a major portion of meetings done via video conferencing etc. 4) as new trends are emerging, and clients are exploring new demands every day, there stand chances for exploiting new work which nobody is doing yet through effective client communication.	1) Currently the company is facing certain hurdles of not getting a large number of new clients. 2) The reason of not getting much new clients is increased competition from banks and other financial sector companies. 3) The current job requires a remaining probation of eight weeks to be permanent. If everything works well the job won’t change. Any problem in conduct of work can lead to job change. 4) Changing technology is a threat as well opportunity because it calls for high costs and change management.

Licensing requirements

The Australian financial services (AFS) license is required to provide taxation services in Australia. The GST/BAS course is also required to be done for provision of BAS services. The key requirements to do this course involve primary qualification in financial services and bookkeeping accounting and relevant experience of some already mentioned hours in the past 4 years (Chao, and Gangopadhyay, 2016).

The AFS license enables the holder to provide SMSF (self-managed superannuation funds) services. Business Activity Statements (BAS) and Instalment Activity Statements (IAS) refer to the forms that business lodge with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to declare their own tax. The organisations that are registered for general service tax (GST) are required to submit BAS. BAS helps to report and pay GST (Ahlawat, and Narayanaswami, 2018).

1. c) Professional development activities

• Attending GST seminars: for updating the knowledge regarding the tax law, its necessary to attend regular seminars held for GST. It will help in resolving queries and clarifying practical approach.
• Completing CPE hours: this will fulfil the requirement of completing the Continuing Professional Education (CPE) hours for being a tax and BAS agent as well as provide recent updates.
• Grabbing formal presentation opportunities: sharing knowledge shall serve as adding to experience and removing hesitation.
• Continued reading: reading of professional journals, economic updates, business magazines (Verma, 2017).

The above report gives a complete insight about the factors that lie outside and inside Moelis Australia and play a vital role in its existence and success. The parameters that can bring drastic changes are also discussed. It can be inferred in a nutshell from the report that for success and proper management of team it’s required to perform as a leader and not as a follower. The mechanisms that can be helpful in attainment of organisational goals are also mentioned. SWOT analysis in a combined manner for self and Moelis Australia is made that highlights the strengths which shall overweigh the weaknesses and the opportunities that will hep curb the threats. Further the brief discussion of BAS and IAS requirements help in formulating the professional developments necessary in the current scenario to outreach the level of competitors.

References

Ahlawat, A. and Narayanaswami, P., 2018. Financial relationships between neurologists and industry: The 2015 Open Payments database. Neurology, pp.10-1212.

Bartram, S.M. and Wang, Y.H., 2015. European financial market dependence: An industry analysis. Journal of Banking & Finance, 59, pp.146-163.

Campbell, E.G., Weissman, J.S., Vogeli, C., Clarridge, B.R., Abraham, M., Marder, J.E. and Koski, G., 2006. Financial relationships between institutional review board members and industry. New England Journal of Medicine, 355(22), pp.2321-2329.

Chao, A.H. and Gangopadhyay, N., 2016. Industry financial relationships in plastic surgery: Analysis of the Sunshine Act Open Payments Database. Plastic and reconstructive surgery, 138(2), pp.341e-348e.

Cvetanovich, G.L., Chalmers, P.N. and Bach Jr, B.R., 2015. Industry financial relationships in orthopaedic surgery: analysis of the Sunshine Act Open Payments database and comparison with other surgical subspecialties. JBJS, 97(15), pp.1288-1295.

DeFusco, R.A., McLeavey, D.W., Pinto, J.E., Anson, M.J. and Runkle, D.E., 2015. Quantitative investment analCampbell, E.G., Weissman, J.S., Vogeli, C., Clarridge, B.R., Abraham, M., Marder, J.E. and Koski, G., 2006. Financial relationships between institutional review board members and industry. New England Journal of Medicine, 355(22), pp.2321-2329.ysis. John Wiley & Sons.

Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.

Li, X., 2015. Accounting conservatism and the cost of capital: An international analysis. Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 42(5-6), pp.555-582.

Verma, V., 2017. Financial Relationships With Industry of Editorial Board Members of the Three Journals of the American Society for Radiation Oncology. International Journal of Radiation Oncology• Biology• Physics, 99(2), pp.286-291.

Vogel, H.L., 2014. Entertainment industry economics: A guide for financial analysis. Cambridge University Press.