I.Introduction

The Laboratory of Economics is an organization that is specialized in research and training fields to increase basic research ability and community service development. It was established in 2001 as a result of Quality of Undergraduate Education (QUE) Project. Its organization is under the Department of Economics (DIE) Faculty of Economics University of Indonesia (FEUI). The Laboratory of Economics main activities includes: research activities, training, and course development; with the main direction towards basic research and basic training.

II.Research Activities

Various research activities conducted under various economics fields: Monetary Economics, International Economics, Trade and Industrial Economics, Public Economics, Regional & Urban Economics, Planning and Development Economics, Environmental Economics, Economics in Energy, and Demographic and Labor Economics, and Shariah Economics. This wide range of fields is possible due to the presence of experts in the fields available in the Faculty of Economics whom can be invited to be visiting researcher on every research conducted.

III.Training Activities

Training activities in the Laboratory of research in Economics consists of two main categories: First is Basic Academic, such as Short Course on Economics: Macro and Micro Economics. Second is the Applied Science, such as the use of various quantitative analytical tools for regional planning.

IV.Structure of Organization

Laboratory of Economics is managed under the coordination of coordinator of laboratory and co-coordinator of laboratory. Coordinator of laboratory and co-coordinator is helped by administration staff and finance staff. Main research staff of Laboratory of Economics are graduate students (master and PhD students) whom the department gives the scholarship. Their position are junior researcher. All of the senior staff of Department of Economics can be invited as visiting senior researcher or the leader of the project. All of the students, especially teaching assistant and undergraduate students can engage in laboratory activities for getting their research and training experience.

Law of banking

Law of banking

Banking law is based on a contractual analysis of the relationship between the bank (defined above) and the customer—defined as any entity for which the bank agrees to conduct an account.

The law implies rights and obligations into this relationship as follows:

1. The bank account balance is the financial position between the bank and the customer: when the account is in credit, the bank owes the balance to the customer; when the account is overdrawn, the customer owes the balance to the bank.
2. The bank agrees to pay the customer's cheques up to the amount standing to the credit of the customer's account, plus any agreed overdraft limit.
3. The bank may not pay from the customer's account without a mandate from the customer, e.g. a cheque drawn by the customer.
4. The bank agrees to promptly collect the cheques deposited to the customer's account as the customer's agent, and to credit the proceeds to the customer's account.
5. The bank has a right to combine the customer's accounts, since each account is just an aspect of the same credit relationship.
6. The bank has a lien on cheques deposited to the customer's account, to the extent that the customer is indebted to the bank.
7. The bank must not disclose details of transactions through the customer's account—unless the customer consents, there is a public duty to disclose, the bank's interests require it, or the law demands it.
8. The bank must not close a customer's account without reasonable notice, since cheques are outstanding in the ordinary course of business for several days.

These implied contractual terms may be modified by express agreement between the customer and the bank. The statutes and regulations in force within a particular jurisdiction may also modify the above terms and/or create new rights, obligations or limitations relevant to the bank-customer relationship.

Accounting for bank accounts Suburban branch bank

Accounting for bank accounts
Suburban branch bank

Bank statements are accounting records produced by banks under the various accounting standards of the world. Under GAAP and IFRS there are two kinds of accounts: debit and credit. Credit accounts are Revenue, Equity and Liabilities. Debit Accounts are Assets and Expenses. This means you credit a credit account to increase its balance, and you debit a debit account to decrease its balance.[7]

This also means you debit your savings account every time you deposit money into it (and the account is normally in deficit), while you credit your credit card account every time you spend money from it (and the account is normally in credit).

However, if you read your bank statement, it will say the opposite—that you credit your account when you deposit money, and you debit it when you withdraw funds. If you have cash in your account, you have a positive (or credit) balance; if you are overdrawn, you have a negative (or deficit) balance.

The reason for this is that the bank, and not you, has produced the bank statement. Your savings might be your assets, but the bank's liability, so they are credit accounts (which should have a positive balance). Conversely, your loans are your liabilities but the bank's assets, so they are debit accounts (which should also have a positive balance).

Where bank transactions, balances, credits and debits are discussed below, they are done so from the viewpoint of the account holder—which is traditionally what most people are used to seeing.
[edit] Wider commercial role

The commercial role of banks is not limited to banking, and includes:

* issue of banknotes (promissory notes issued by a banker and payable to bearer on demand)
* processing of payments by way of telegraphic transfer, EFTPOS, internet banking or other means
* issuing bank drafts and bank cheques
* accepting money on term deposit
* lending money by way of overdraft, installment loan or otherwise
* providing documentary and standby letters of credit (trade finance), guarantees, performance bonds, securities underwriting commitments and other forms of off-balance sheet exposures
* safekeeping of documents and other items in safe deposit boxes
* currency exchange
* acting as a 'financial supermarket' for the sale, distribution or brokerage, with or without advice, of insurance, unit trusts and similar financial products

History
Main article: History of banking

The first state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), was founded in 1407 at Genoa, Italy.[1]
[edit] Origin of the word
Silver drachm coin from Trapezus, 4th century BC

The name bank derives from the Italian word banco "desk/bench", used during the Renaissance by Jewish Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth.[2] However, there are traces of banking activity even in ancient times.

In fact, the word traces its origins back to the Ancient Roman Empire, where moneylenders would set up their stalls in the middle of enclosed courtyards called macella on a long bench called a bancu, from which the words banco and bank are derived. As a moneychanger, the merchant at the bancu did not so much invest money as merely convert the foreign currency into the only legal tender in Rome—that of the Imperial Mint.[3]

The earliest evidence of money-changing activity is depicted on a silver drachm coin from ancient Hellenic colony Trapezus on the Black Sea, modern Trabzon, c. 350–325 BC, presented in the British Museum in London. The coin shows a banker's table (trapeza) laden with coins, a pun on the name of the city.

In fact, even today in Modern Greek the word Trapeza (Τράπεζα) means both a table and a bank.
[edit] Traditional banking activities
Large door to an old bank vault.

Banks act as payment agents by conducting checking or current accounts for customers, paying cheques drawn by customers on the bank, and collecting cheques deposited to customers' current accounts. Banks also enable customer payments via other payment methods such as telegraphic transfer, EFTPOS, and ATM.

Banks borrow money by accepting funds deposited on current accounts, by accepting term deposits, and by issuing debt securities such as banknotes and bonds. Banks lend money by making advances to customers on current accounts, by making installment loans, and by investing in marketable debt securities and other forms of money lending.

Banks provide almost all payment services, and a bank account is considered indispensable by most businesses, individuals and governments. Non-banks that provide payment services such as remittance companies are not normally considered an adequate substitute for having a bank account.

Banks borrow most funds from households and non-financial businesses, and lend most funds to households and non-financial businesses, but non-bank lenders provide a significant and in many cases adequate substitute for bank loans, and money market funds, cash management trusts and other non-bank financial institutions in many cases provide an adequate substitute to banks for lending savings to.[clarification needed]
[edit] Definition
Cathay Bank in Boston's Chinatown

The definition of a bank varies from country to country.

Under English common law, a banker is defined as a person who carries on the business of banking, which is specified as:[4]

* conducting current accounts for his customers
* paying cheques drawn on him, and
* collecting cheques for his customers.

In most English common law jurisdictions there is a Bills of Exchange Act that codifies the law in relation to negotiable instruments, including cheques, and this Act contains a statutory definition of the term banker: banker includes a body of persons, whether incorporated or not, who carry on the business of banking' (Section 2, Interpretation). Although this definition seems circular, it is actually functional, because it ensures that the legal basis for bank transactions such as cheques do not depend on how the bank is organised or regulated.

The business of banking is in many English common law countries not defined by statute but by common law, the definition above. In other English common law jurisdictions there are statutory definitions of the business of banking or banking business. When looking at these definitions it is important to keep in mind that they are defining the business of banking for the purposes of the legislation, and not necessarily in general. In particular, most of the definitions are from legislation that has the purposes of entry regulating and supervising banks rather than regulating the actual business of banking. However, in many cases the statutory definition closely mirrors the common law one. Examples of statutory definitions:

* "banking business" means the business of receiving money on current or deposit account, paying and collecting cheques drawn by or paid in by customers, the making of advances to customers, and includes such other business as the Authority may prescribe for the purposes of this Act; (Banking Act (Singapore), Section 2, Interpretation).

* "banking business" means the business of either or both of the following:

1. receiving from the general public money on current, deposit, savings or other similar account repayable on demand or within less than [3 months] ... or with a period of call or notice of less than that period;
2. paying or collecting cheques drawn by or paid in by customers[5]

Since the advent of EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale), direct credit, direct debit and internet banking, the cheque has lost its primacy in most banking systems as a payment instrument. This has led legal theorists to suggest that the cheque based definition should be broadened to include financial institutions that conduct current accounts for customers and enable customers to pay and be paid by third parties, even if they do not pay and collect cheques.[6]