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124 Shah & Clarke

On the other hand, job losses are one of the methods of cutting costs and this has
numerous negative implications for those effected. The displacement of job oppor-
tunities away from face-to-face and back-office service roles to information system
professionals is a common feature of the electronic commerce revolution (Turban
et al 2000). How banks deal with this issue often raises ethical issues which may
be mitigated by a careful and considerate approach to change management.
In business to business banking, access to sophisticated e-banking often comes
hand in hand with the need for ‘plumbing in’ of software and hardware, which
means that business customers are locked into one bank’s facilities. This is a form
of restriction of free choice (Harris & Spence, 2002). The main ethical issue here
is that the business customer should be aware that a particular choice could mean
that there are significant implications for future freedom of choice.
Fraudulent activity by individuals and businesses is both illegal and unethical
but what about the facilitating of fraudulent activity? How much responsibility do
banks have to prevent their services being used to aid unethical or illegal activities
such as money laundering or depositing money made through corruption? The Swiss
banking system of confidentiality has always been condemned in this regard (Harris
& Spence, 2002), but many banks in other countries have been found wanting in
connection with these activities.
Taking personal relationships out of responses to credit applications has the effect
of dehumanizing the process. A client’s relationship with a bank or a manager may
have developed over years of loyal customer commitment. Reducing this to boxes
ticked and computer-generated numbers/models would, according to an ethic of care,
result in the loss of the development of individual relationships, the human touch
and the use of intuition (Harris & Spence, 2002). Such aspects may be viewed as
necessay to the new electronic economy, but human networks are just as important
a part of business practice as the efficiencies associated with e-banking.
Electronic commerce also allows for the concealment of the real identity of
suppliers of a product or service. This white labeling (products sold without clearly
labeling the source/supplier) may offer extraordinarily misleading information about
the source (Harris & Spence, 2002). This and many other ethical issues remain to
be address to date and progress seems to be slow.
Small banks also have to overcome impediments related to investment, techni-
cal skills, ethical issues and understanding of organizational issues involved. All
these obstacles need to be identified, and then minimized through active learning
and collaboration with customers, management, and people within organization
as a whole.

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