Including individuals in the mainstream financial system does not serve much benefit until they are financially literate. In fact, despite financial inclusion, financially illiterate people are most likely to commit many mistakes on financial front. Financial literacy therefore, is rapidly being recognised as a core skill in an increasingly complex financial environment and the governments around the world are putting all efforts to improve financial literacy amongst their citizens. Since providing financial education effectively requires evidence on the current levels of financial knowledge, this paper provides an evidence on the current financial literacy among farmers in the state of Punjab, which on one side helps feeding whole of the country, but on the other side has one of the highest debt levels among its farmers. We find that the farmers generally were financially literate as 37 per cent farmers had sound financial literacy and 47 percent had fair financial literacy. In addition, farmers had greater literacy in terms of interest, compounding, or inflation but were comparatively weaker on the front of time value of money and basic financial principles. A strong positive association was also seen between level of financial literacy and educational qualifications, annual income, and land holding size of the farmers. The findings of this study can serve as a benchmark for any training programme in provision of financial knowledge and skills to the farmers and a basis for policy formulation.

Service Branding is relatively a new phenomenon in the service sector which can enhance the corporate brand value. When we talk about service sector, banking sector is an influential segment. Banks can leverage their brand value through focusing on brand communication. Successful brand communication influences the perception of customers towards a brand. A brand can be communicated to the potential customers through advertising certain brand attributes which differentiate one organization from the other. Brand attributes may be considered as the basic descriptive features that intrinsically or extrinsically characterize the organization. Banks should communicate their brand attributes to their customers in such a manner that it results in optimizing their brand value. Brand value is determined on the basis of the customer's knowledge about the brands. The present study examines those factors that affect the customer perceptions regarding various brand attributes in the banking sector. These brand attributes are communicated by the banks in order to build strong brand image in the minds of customers and helps the organization in corporate branding. For the purpose of study, a structured questionnaire was administered of 103 respondents to identify the factors that influence the customer's perceptions towards attributes of bank brand. Factor analysis was applied and it explained 63.3% variance and 6 factors were extracted from 22 statements. The analysis revealed that brand perceived quality is the most significant factor that influences the customer perceptions towards bank as a brand. Keywords: Customer's Perceptions, Bank Initiatives, Corporate Branding.

The value sales promotions create for the brand is a function of the value or benefits the promotions create for consumers. Adopting the consumer perspective enhances the effectiveness of response to the sales promotion initiative. At the same time it strengthens rather than erodes brand equity and does not lead to price based competition. Sales Promotions that rely on direct monetary benefits to customers are often a consequence of price competition. In the short run such promotions lose their effectiveness to gain market share. In the long run monetary sales promotions increase price sensitivity and destroy brand equity. Many industry experts are calling for more effective and cost efficient sales promotions that rely less on monetary benefits and more on increasing perceptions of product value. In the past few years there have been a number of new promotion formats which do not use price as a promotional tool. These have been categorized as follows: 1.Strategic Promotions: Promotions that offer a benefit to customers without charging a price that goes far beyond the functional value of the product. 2. Value Bundling: Abundle of products that collectively enhance the value of all the products in the bundle. 3. Product Bundling: A conveniently assembled set of related products. 4. Events: Entertaining or educative experiences 5.Interactivity: Interactive marketing communications linked to sales promotions. Research Methodology: Print and electronic media advertisements have been scanned for a period between June 2012 and September 2013 to identify advertisements that have a sales promotion component. Data has been compiled for 300 advertisements carrying a sales promotion component. Results: The sales promotion component has been analysed and categorized. The frequency of occurrence of various formats of sales promotion has been tabulated. Based on this analysis the popularity of different forms of sales promotion has been assessed. In addition to the numerical analysis the paper also provides details of several creative forms of sales promotion which can be a source of reference for developing new forms of creative sales promotion. The study demonstrates clearly emerging trends in favour of non price sales promotions.It also opens up avenues for further research to examine their effectiveness in terms of consumer response. Keywords: Sales promortion, Innovative, brand.

Present research is an initial attempt at the banking sector level highlighting the relative Customer Relationship Management (CRM) performance & evaluates its collision on customer retention between the Private and Public Banks of Uttar Pradesh. CRM means, edifice an interdependent relationship with the customer in whom each relies on the other for business solutions and successes. It came into the power when banking industry were getting more, more competitive and shield its market share and boost growth. From the Bank's point of view, it is the management process or approach of acquiring, retaining and growing. SPSS Package was applied to compile and analyze the data. Major Factors taken from various researches to analysis their importance and Stratified random sampling technique used for administrating the questionnaire. Results bring out that the Private Banks have been able to implement the CRM practices more effectively. However, a micro analysis reveals that the Public Banks have highest scores in terms of reliability and assurance. The analysis of the results suggests that the banks (whether Public or Private) are equally affected by the kind of CRM initiatives they undertake. Keywords: CRM, Private (AXIS & ING VYSYA) & Public (UBI & OBC) Sector Banks, CRM factors, Chi-Square test & p-value.

With the globalization of markets and increasingly high public expectations of professional behavior, ethics and their application in practice are of vital importance to surveyors. The paper outlines the basis for ethics, considers the necessary content of a code of ethics and, through the use of examples, examines a number of real-life ethical conflicts. The paper builds on the FIG Model Code of Professional Conduct and supports the work of FIG Working Group 1.2 (Business Practices). Keywords: Ethics, Business

Purpose- Corporate governance has grown as an important mechanism over the last two decades. This paper discusses the new expectations and key challenges for the governance practices to mitigate the conflicts between the shareholders in the wake of corporate governance reforms. A closer insight into the nature of Governance-Performance link for top management in developing economies like India will provide much needed useful information to both regulatory bodies and practitioners for the evaluation of the current reforms and provide a base for future reform measures. This paper seeks to deal with these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A review of available literature was summarised to identify the governance factors affecting the firm's performance so that least studied governance factors will be taken into consideration for future research for governance-performance link. Findings – The majority of the findings from the review showed that the various board attributes are significantly (whether positive or negative) associated with the performance. However, board provenience and the board interlocks variables are least studied variables in the review but these two can make significant contribution to the existing literature if studied more in future research. Moreover, the impact of remuneration of directors on firm's performance is studied, but it is not broadly studied inversely. Originality/value – Considering the other literature and research, this paper provides an insight into the link between various governance factors and performance. Paper type- Literature review Corporate Governance, Financial Performance, Board, India.

The present paper tries to explore the relationship between Gold prices and various other external factors vis-à-vis Crude oil price, Foreign Institutional Investment, Standard & Poor's- 500, Foreign Exchange Reserves and the value of a dollar in terms of Indian Rupee. The study also attempts to find out whether fluctuations in the prices of gold are influenced by changes in these factors. For the purpose of study monthly statistical data for the abovementioned variables was analysed covering the period from April, 2004 to March 2013. In order to examine the relationship among these factors Multiple Regression Equation model (Galton, 1877) has been employed. The results reveal high co-relation among the factors used under the study i.e. Crude oil, Foreign Institutional Investment, S&P 500, Foreign Exchange Reserves and USD/INR & suggest that all these external factors significantly influence price of gold in India. Crude oil, Foreign Institutional Investment, Foreign exchange reserves, Gold price, Standard & Poor's- 500, US Dollar, Regression Analysis.

The present study addressed the effects of two context variables, such as work experience and gender on conflict resolution ways of employees working in service sector. This was for the intention of ascertaining the relative impact of work experience and gender on conflict resolution ways towards ensuring sustainable peace and harmony in service organizations. A total of 151 respondents were selected for the study using convenience sampling technique and were asked to indicate their response in terms of the ten factors of conflict resolution. A set of questionnaire titled 'Conflict Resolution Questionnaire' developed by Marcus Henning based on the factors presented by McClellan (1997c) was used for data collection. The findings revealed that: there was no significant difference between male and female managers' conflict resolution ways. Further, work experience produced significant effect on conflict management. Experienced employees communicate clearly various conflict issues; control emotions; identify essential needs that have to be met by focusing on future relationship generate all possible alternatives to agreements when resolving conflict. The implications for the study are discussed. Keywords: Gender, Conflict, Conflict Management and Work Experience Etc

Nowadays customers required more innovative products due to complexity of needs so that banks have to launch faster growing strategy. Mobile banking (also known as M-banking, sms-banking) is a term used for performing balance checks, account transactions, payments etc. via a mobile device such as a mobile phone. Mobile Banking has been in existence since more than a decade. Mobile Banking would be increasingly used from Building better consumers association, cutting down cost, achieving new revenue stream, connecting with the new consumers sectors, build up customer relationships to improve loyalty, and create new ways to generate lead in the process of prospecting. The main objectives of the study are: - To explain the procedure of Mobile Banking. To study about the risk associated and precautionary measures of M-Banking. This paper is based on secondary data. Keywords: Mobile banking, Problems, Procedure.