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Full-Text Articles in Banking and Finance Law

Digital Dollar: Privacy And Transparency Dilemma, Jiaying Jiang Jan 2024

Digital Dollar: Privacy And Transparency Dilemma, Jiaying Jiang

UF Law Faculty Publications

Many have voiced concerns that a digital dollar, a digital form of central bank money, will facilitate government surveillance, thus depriving users of privacy. Contrary to popular belief, this Article investigates critical technical designs proposed by leading think tanks, central banks, and scholars from interdisciplinary fields, it reaches a surprising conclusion: a digital dollar can offer better privacy protection than existing digital payment systems. The Article argues that those expressing concerns have made two flawed assumptions: (1) that the digital dollar data is fully transparent regarding personal information and transaction details, and (2) that the government or the Federal Reserve …


Debt And Taxes, David Hasen Jan 2021

Debt And Taxes, David Hasen

UF Law Faculty Publications

The federal income tax conceptualizes the standard loan transaction as an exchange of cash for promises to pay interest and to repay the amount borrowed by the term. This formulation is subtly wrong in ways that have led to a weaker foundation for existing tax rules than they merit. Conceptualizing loans instead as closely akin to leases places most of the tax rules for debt on sounder footing because it clarifies that the consideration paid for the use of the loan proceeds is interest. If interest is the cost of the use of money, then simple borrowing is a fully-paid-for …


Don't End Or Audit The Fed: Central Bank Independence In An Age Of Austerity, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf Jan 2016

Don't End Or Audit The Fed: Central Bank Independence In An Age Of Austerity, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Federal Reserve (the Fed) is the central bank of the United States. Because of its power and importance in guiding the economy, the Fed's independence from direct political influence has made it a target of ideologically motivated attacks throughout its history, with an especially aggressive round of attacks coming in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and ongoing today. We defend Fed independence. We point to the Fed's exemplary performance during and after the 2008 crisis, and we offer the example of a potential future crisis in which Congress falls to increase the debt ceiling to show how …


Regulating For The First Time The Decision To Grant Consumer Credit: A Look At The First Steps Taken By The United States And Australia, Jeffrey Davis Jan 2015

Regulating For The First Time The Decision To Grant Consumer Credit: A Look At The First Steps Taken By The United States And Australia, Jeffrey Davis

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, I discuss the changes in three consumer-credit realms. First, I compare the Australian regime applicable to all forms of consumer credit granting, including mortgage lending, to the American regulation of the consumer mortgage-granting decision. Second, I compare the Australian and American approaches to the decision to authorize use of, or increase the credit limit on, individual credit cards. Third, I compare the two approaches to regulating small short-term loans, usually called payday loans. Finally, I compare the enforcement regimes of both countries — perhaps the key to it all.


Are Cryptocurrencies 'Super' Tax Havens?, Omri Y. Marian Oct 2013

Are Cryptocurrencies 'Super' Tax Havens?, Omri Y. Marian

UF Law Faculty Publications

I describe the mechanisms by which cryptocurrencies — a subcategory of virtual currencies — could replace tax havens as the weapon-of-choice for tax-evaders. I argue such outcome is reasonably expected in the foreseeable future due to the contemporary convergence of two processes. The first process is the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies, of which Bitcoin is the most widely recognized example. The second process is the transformation of financial intermediaries to agents in the service of tax authorities, as part of the fight against offshore tax evasion. Financial institutions are faced with increased governmental pressure to deliver information about account holders, …


The New Investor, Tom C. W. Lin Jan 2013

The New Investor, Tom C. W. Lin

UF Law Faculty Publications

A sea change is happening in finance. Machines appear to be on the rise and humans on the decline. Human endeavors have become unmanned endeavors. Human thought and human deliberation have been replaced by computerized analysis and mathematical models. Technological advances have made finance faster, larger, more global, more interconnected, and less human. Modern finance is becoming an industry in which the main players are no longer entirely human. Instead, the key players are now cyborgs: part machine, part human. Modern finance is transforming into what this Article calls cyborg finance.

This Article offers one of the first broad, descriptive, …


A Behavioral Framework For Securities Risk, Tom C.W. Lin Jan 2011

A Behavioral Framework For Securities Risk, Tom C.W. Lin

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article provides the first critical analysis and redesign of the existing securities risk disclosure framework given new insights from the emerging, interdisciplinary field of behavioral economics. Disclosure is the principle at the heart of federal securities regulation. Beneath that core principle of disclosure is the basic assumption that the reasonable investor is the idealized über-rational person of neoclassical economic theory. Therefore, once armed with the requisite information investors presumably can protect themselves through rational choice. Descriptively, however, real investors are not like their rational, neoclassical kin. This article examines this incongruence between the idealized rational investor and the imperfect …


Fiduciary Exemption For Public Necessity: Shareholder Profit, Public Good, And The Hobson's Choice During A National Crisis, Robert J. Rhee Apr 2010

Fiduciary Exemption For Public Necessity: Shareholder Profit, Public Good, And The Hobson's Choice During A National Crisis, Robert J. Rhee

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article is written as two discrete, independently accessible topical sections. The first topical section, presented in Part I of this Article, is a case study of Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch and the impact of a flawed merger execution on the board’s subsequent decisions. The second topical section, presented Parts II-IV of this Article, advances a theoretical basis for fiduciary exemption during a public crisis. The financial crisis of 2008 was the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. It nearly resulted in a collapse of the global capital markets. A key event in the history of …


Too Big To Fail, Too Blind To See, Tom C.W. Lin Jan 2010

Too Big To Fail, Too Blind To See, Tom C.W. Lin

UF Law Faculty Publications

Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin offers a meticulous re-telling of one of the most important periods in recent history. As regulators, bankers, lawyers, scholars, and other interested parties sift through the rubble in search of knowledge about the crash, Too Big to Fail serves both as a chronicle of the recent past and a cautionary tale for the immediate future. Acknowledging past missteps, uncovering root causes, and correcting systemic shortcomings to prevent similar failure is arguably the key economic and regulatory challenge of our time. Part I of this Essay summarizes key episodes of the financial crisis …


The Decline Of Investment Banking: Preliminary Thoughts On The Evolution Of The Industry 1996-2008, Robert J. Rhee Jan 2010

The Decline Of Investment Banking: Preliminary Thoughts On The Evolution Of The Industry 1996-2008, Robert J. Rhee

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this paper, I provide a basic, preliminary financial analysis of several prominent, independent investment banks: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns. I provide the following data: (1) segmentation of net revenue by products and services, (2) return on average equity, (3) leverage ratio, and (4) debt to equity ratio. Although the data analysis here is very basic, it still tells an interesting narrative of the evolution of the investment banking industry. The investment banking industry has undergone significant change in the twelve-year period 1996 to 2008. In the mid-1990s, banks had a balance mix …


Internet Casinos: A Sure Bet For Money Laundering, Jon L. Mills Oct 2000

Internet Casinos: A Sure Bet For Money Laundering, Jon L. Mills

UF Law Faculty Publications

Since the end of World War II, American society has seen the emergence of technology promising to make life easier, better and longer lasting. The more recent explosion of the Internet is fulfilling the dreams of the high-tech pundits as it provides global real-time communication links and makes the world's knowledge universally available. Privacy concerns surrounding the develop-ment of the Internet have mounted, and in response, service providers and web site operators have enabled web users to conduct transactions in nearly complete anonymity. While anonymity respects individual privacy, anonymity also facilitates criminal activities needing secrecy. One such activity is money …


Commentary On Financial Privacy, Lynn M. Lopucki Jan 1999

Commentary On Financial Privacy, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

My three criticisms are this: First, Peter frames the problem as privacy versus government surveillance, thus ignoring the best solution to the problem, which is to make more information public. Second, Peter exaggerates the human need for privacy by presenting the need as immutable and essentially coextensive with embarrassment. People do not need nearly the privacy they think they do. Third, if Peter’s broad view of privacy holds, then you can forget about the information age.


"The Environmental Impacts Of International Finance Corporation Lending And Proposals For Reform: A Case Study Of Conservation And Oil Development In The Guatemalan Petén", Ian A. Bowles, Amy B. Rosenfeld, Cyril F. Kormos, Conrad C.S. Reining, James D. Nations, Thomas T. Ankersen Jan 1999

"The Environmental Impacts Of International Finance Corporation Lending And Proposals For Reform: A Case Study Of Conservation And Oil Development In The Guatemalan Petén", Ian A. Bowles, Amy B. Rosenfeld, Cyril F. Kormos, Conrad C.S. Reining, James D. Nations, Thomas T. Ankersen

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article presents a case study of lending by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank Group, in the oil and gas sector in Guatemala. The case study emphasizes the need for additional environmental reform at IFC. With two separate loans in 1994 and 1996, IFC supported the activities of a small international oil company that was operating within a national park in the northern Guatemalan Petdn, an area of rich tropical forests and globally important wetlands. The company's operations had been "grandfathered"in to the park upon its creation in 1990. Funding from IFC …


Rip To Irp - Money Laundering And Drug Trafficking Controls Score A Knockout Victory Over Bank Secrecy, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol Jan 1993

Rip To Irp - Money Laundering And Drug Trafficking Controls Score A Knockout Victory Over Bank Secrecy, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article reviews the evolution of bank secrecy laws and comments on the erosion of rights effected by the domestic and international efforts to curb drug trafficking and money laundering. Part II reviews the evolution of bank secrecy laws in the international sphere and views the origins of the individuals' right to financial privacy. Specifically, Part II focuses on the laws of Switzerland and England to show the bases and proliferation of secrecy protections. Part III provides the background of the status of financial privacy in the United States. The following two parts describe initiatives aimed at eliminating drug trafficking …