Case Study 4: Risks, Governance, Ethics, and Sustainability Smith is a hard-working individual who works in a medium size financial company in the UK. His organization mainly provides support facilities such as soft loans to people encountering financial problems. One of their business activities is to maintain a large database of information on the customers using their services. Besides financial information, Smith companys data files contain personal details such as names, phone numbers, and current addresses of the customers. Smith is currently working on a project and has been assigned the task of analyzing data and writing a report that contains the number of customers who have completed payment for their loans, customers who are behind on their payments, customers who have defaulted but are yet to be issued a formal notification, the default rate, and the probability of default for customers whose circumstances have changed. The report must be ready in time for a meeting with senior administrators to be held in 4 days time. However, Smith is under a lot of pressure from his other commitments and could not find time in his already busy schedule during office hours. Consequently, Smith decided to copy the data required to prepare a report from the office data center into his large portable hard drive and work on the report over the weekend at home to finish on time. However, his home computer malfunctioned on Saturday morning. In response, to avoid failing to meet the deadline, Smith decided to use a computer at a local library not far from his residence. He was able to complete the project on time for the meeting. Your Tasks: Discuss the following questions in relation to project risks, governance, ethics, and sustainability. a) What are the ethical issues raised by Smiths conduct? b) What are the risks associated with Smiths behaviour? c) What should be done to prevent Smiths conduct from happening again in the future? You might wish to develop a risk register containing at least 5 risks. d) Reflect and document your opinion about sustainability in the financial sector.

1. Case Study 4: Risks, Governance, Ethics, and Sustainability
Smith is a hard-working individual who works in a medium size financial company in the UK. His
organization mainly provides support facilities such as soft loans to people encountering financial
problems. One of their business activities is to maintain a large database of information on the
customers using their services. Besides financial information, Smith companys data files contain
personal details such as names, phone numbers, and current addresses of the customers. Smith
is currently working on a project and has been assigned the task of analyzing data and writing a
report that contains the number of customers who have completed payment for their loans,
customers who are behind on their payments, customers who have defaulted but are yet to be
issued a formal notification, the default rate, and the probability of default for customers whose
circumstances have changed. The report must be ready in time for a meeting with senior
administrators to be held in 4 days time. However, Smith is under a lot of pressure from his other
commitments and could not find time in his already busy schedule during office hours.
Consequently, Smith decided to copy the data required to prepare a report from the office data
center into his large portable hard drive and work on the report over the weekend at home to finish
on time. However, his
home computer malfunctioned on Saturday morning. In response, to avoid failing to meet the
deadline, Smith decided to use a computer at a local library not far from his residence. He was
able to complete the project on time for the meeting.
Your Tasks:
Discuss the following questions in relation to project risks, governance, ethics, and sustainability.
a) What are the ethical issues raised by Smiths conduct?
b) What are the risks associated with Smiths behaviour?
c) What should be done to prevent Smiths conduct from happening again in the future? You might
wish to develop a risk register containing at least 5 risks.
d) Reflect and document your opinion about sustainability in the financial sector