Australian Banking & Finance articles from February 2005

Australian Banking & Finance archives from February 2005

CBA silences critics; the Commonwealth Bank's positive results for 31 December, 2004 stunned critics who had been dismissive of the bank's restructuring program and set the scene for a more positive outlook for the banking sector.(News)(Commonwealth Bank of Australia)
February 15, 2005... CBA delivered record profits and dividends for the six months to December 31 and forecast even better results for this full year and 2006. Interim net profit rose 50 per cent to $1.86 billion, up from $1.29 billion the previous year, as total...

Banks gain at brokers expense.(News)
February 15, 2005... IN THE SEPTEMBER 2004 QUARTER, the mortgage broker market saw a -7% contraction in loan volumes compared to a 5.3% growth in the same quarter in 2003. In this context the major banks have significantly increased their business share while...

Awards shortlist finalised.
February 15, 2005... THE 15TH ANNUAL 2005 AUSTRALIAN BANKING & Finance AWARDS ARE UP AND running with an impressive list of nominations shortlisted. Readers are now invited to cast their votes by filling in the coupon on page 11. The voting coupon will appear in...

ASX reforms to enhance market liquidity.(News)(Australian Stock Exchange)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... THE AUSTRALIAN STOCK EXCHANGE (ASX) HAS ANNOUNCED REFORMS which will enhance liquidity in the equity market and improve the quality and fairness of the market. The reforms form part of its continuous review of the efficiency and effectiveness...

Rating upgrade for Bendigo Bank: Bendigo Bank's long-term credit rating was upgraded in February by international rating agency Standard & Poor's. Its long-term rating is now BBB-plus. The Bank's managing director Rob Hunt says the move is welcome.(News)
February 15, 2005... "It will broaden our appeal in international markets and contribute to lowering Bendigo's wholesale funding costs," he says. Bendigo Bank currently derives around 15 per cent of its funding from wholesale markets but this has been...

Correction.(News)(Correction Notice)
February 15, 2005... In a headline in the last issue of Australian Banking & Finance, the organisation First Data appeared incorrectly as First data.

Banking world.(News)(Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. losses)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Financial Accounting Department General Manager Yasushi Sakai (right) looks on while President Yoshifumi Nishikawa listens to a reporter's question at a press briefing at the Bank of Japan's press club in Tokyo...

Australian hedge funds perform; Australian hedge fund strategies gave investors generous returns in 2004: a trend expected to continue into 2005, according to The Bank of Bermuda AsiaHedge Composite index.(News)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... With regulators in Hong Kong and Singapore working to develop their hedge funds industries in 2005, the success of Australian hedge fund strategies indicated the maturity of Australia as a funds management centre. The Bank of Bermuda AsiaHedge...

AFG transforms mortgage business into full-scale financial services firm with Siebel Finance; commissions processing time reduced by 50 per cent with Siebel Incentive Compensation Management.(News)
February 15, 2005... Australian Finance Group (AFG) is now processing around $1.5 billion dollars of home mortgage lending per month following its deployment of Siebel Finance. Sales commission processing times have also been reduced by more than 50 per cent with...

BOJ: a role model for ECB? Okay stop laughing; economist Paul Donovan rushed to check three different news sources to make sure Gerhard Schroeder had not been misquoted.(International)
February 15, 2005... Nope. Turns out the German chancellor, during a trip to Tokyo late last year, actually did say Europe "can learn something from Japan and its great monetary policy." Donovan, senior global economist at UBS AG in London, reacted how many no...

HP builds standards-based service centre for Bank of Shanghai.(Tech Briefs)(Hewlett-Packard Co.)
February 15, 2005... HP has announced it will help the Bank of Shanghai build a standards-based service centre designed to reduce costs and processing time of online transactions in light of its rapid growth as a retail bank with more than 200 branches. Together...

Capital says OK to eBworx.(Tech Briefs)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... eBworx has won a contract with Thai-based Capital OK to implement the Consumer Loan and Credit Card module of its flagship Digital Credit Management System (DCMS). The system will provide a comprehensive loan application workflow and tracking...

Bank of India stays on top of technology.(Tech Briefs)(Misys Wholesale Banking Systems develops software)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... The Bank of India (BOI) has rolled out its new purchase from Misys Wholesale Banking Systems (Misys): the Misys MidasPlus with Global Processing. The system went live last December across 19 branches and seven time zones. The system will offer...

HP develops Finnacle banking solution for Infosys.(Tech Briefs; Infosys International Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... HP has developed Finnacle, a new banking solution for Infosys, which plans to target banks in south east Asia amidst the fast-growing financial services sector in the region. The region's IT spend in banking, financial markets and insurance...

Basel II to make up over 10% of APAC banks' IT spend.(International)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... LARGE LOCAL BANKS ARE EXPECTED TO SPEND IN THE REGION OF US$30--60 million each in their Basel II compliance efforts, while aggregated costs for banks in Asia Pacific stands at US$9.2 billion from 2002-2006, or 10-13 per cent of their IT spend,...

China's Zhou Xiaochuan pledges faster bank reform; China's Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan pledged to speed up efforts to strengthen the country's banks in 2005, a condition identified by President Hu Jintao as necessary before revaluing the currency.(International)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... The central bank aims to "speed up the drive to reform the finance industry", Zhou said in a New Year speech posted on the People's Bank of China Web site. The central bank will also push for "more strength and reform to foreign exchange...

Vincent Cheng takes over from David Eldon.(International)(HSBC Holdings PLC)(Peter Wong appointed in Shanghai Banking Corp.)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... HSBC HOLDINGS HAS APPOINTED Vincent Cheng chairman of its Hong Kong unit, making him the first Chinese national to hold the post. Cheng 56, replaces David Eldon 59, who is retiring as chairman of both Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking...

Blueprint for change: getting from vision to reality: coming up with a vision for change isn't hard, says Nigel Lee, director, EDS Financial Industry Services, Asia & Japan--bringing it about is.(International)
February 15, 2005... The only certainty about the future of banking technology is that it will change rapidly and continuously. Changes wrought by the market regulators, competitors and technology itself guarantees this. Yet, banks remain hampered by antiquated...

Future Directions conference great success.(Future Directions In Banking--Pictorial)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... Australian Banking & Finance held its first conference for 2005 in Sydney on Future Directions in banking and finance. Top speakers included Michael Pratt, Westpac, Paul Fegan, St George and CBA's Michael Katz. Over 300 attended the breakfast....

Telecoms trends: the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group at Deloitte has announced its predictions for the global telecommunications industry in 2005, forecasting a year of significant milestones, as well as difficult questions.(Special Feature--Telecommunications)
February 15, 2005... Grant Hyde, Deloitte's regional leader for Telecommunications in Asia Pacific says that the mobile and wireless market will overall maintain a positive trajectory in 2005. VoIP challenge "By year-end there will be close to 2 billion...

Report identifies more attacks targeting e-commerce and Web applications; an Internet security report released by information security firm Symantec states that exploits are being created more easily and faster than ever.(Special Feature--Security & Fraud)
February 15, 2005... "While this is happening, attackers are launching more sophisticated attacks for financial gain," according to Arthur Wong, vice president, Symantec Security Response and Managed Security Services. "Software vulnerabilities and targeted attacks...

Understanding the customer: in the mid 1990s, customer relationship management became a dirty word as corporations spent millions on technology that was unable to deliver on its promises.(Special Feature--CRM)(Customer Relationship Management Solutions)
February 15, 2005... However, fast forward to today and you will find similar amounts being spent but now organisations know what outcomes to expect. Organisations such as telcos, retailers, utilities and financial services believe customer relationship management...

Creating a paperless office with Pitney Bowes: Pitney Bowes is the world's leading supplier of mailing systems. Based in the UK, Pitney Bowes Financial Solutions Europe (PBFSE) handles the financing arrangements for any equipment the parent company sells to businesses in 11 countries across Europe.(Special Feature--CRM)
February 15, 2005... The majority of such sales involve leasing contracts and PBFSE is responsible for the full range of activities associated with these contracts--from new business to credit checking, customer services and collections processing. According...

Best practice CRM strategies: after a period of focusing on cost cutting to increase bottom line profits, growing revenue is firmly back on the agenda of most financial organisations. While controlling costs will remain important, ultimately, long-term, sustainable shareholder value comes from revenue growth.(Special Feature--CRM)
February 15, 2005... In an industry where customer service differentiation is key to driving improvements in customer's share of wallet, financial services has been an innovator in customer relationship management (CRM) applications for many years. This depth of...

2005 Awards announce new categories: the 15th Annual 2005 Australian Banking & Finance Awards are moving ahead with our judging panel finalising the list of nominations in the 15 voting categories.(2005 Australian Banking & Finance Awards)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... The voting coupon below will appear in the next four issues of Australian Banking & Finance and voting will close on April 29. This year's judging panel comprises Macquarie Bank's non-executive director Helen Nugent, chief executive officer...

Dorking the Kiwis?(Behind The Screens)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... Peter Costello's plan to regulate the New Zealand market by fiat, as it were, from Canberra has found an unexpected ally in National Bank's John Key. Now in the pay of ANZ, Key can be expected to dance to his paymaster's tune, which is why New...

Number one ... for a moment.(Behind The Screens)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... Also at Commonwealth, sources tell us, an impromptu celebration was rudely interrupted by senior management recently. It seems that the boys in the trading room telephoned treasury with the news that market capitalisation on the ASX was nudging...

Girls Blouses?(Behind The Screens)(East and Partners' research on micro business)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... Banks generally welcome research as a tool for spotting market trends. East and Partners' latest finding on micro businesses (those with revenues of between $1 million and $5 million), however, makes for depressing reading. "They generally have...

Will he or won't he?(Behind The Screens)(will John McFarlane buy AMP shares?)(Brief Article)
February 15, 2005... John McFarlane is still dancing around AMP we hear. His latest suggestion that AMP shares are "grossly over priced" when using a banking-style earnings model as an indicator is somewhat fatuous and he knows it. Andrew Mohl's asset-based...

"Don't rely on VaR": "VaR is the wrong concept for measuring risk. Over-reliance on it is itself a growing risk for the global financial system".(News)(Value added resellers)
February 15, 2005... This significant statement is contained in an article recently published in Euromoney by Markus Leippold, an assistant professor at The Swiss Banking Institute in Zurich. Not only is VaR used extensively as a measuring and reporting tool...