Australian Banking & Finance articles from March 2005

Australian Banking & Finance archives from March 2005

McDonald slams RBA credit card reforms.(Reserve Bank of Australia)(Moray McDonald)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... MORAY MCDONALD, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF DINERS CLUB Australia, says the aims of the RBA's card reforms introduced two years ago do not appear to have been achieved. He said this when speaking at Australian Banking & Finance's recent Melbourne...

Leading Melbourne bankers say CRM is king!(NEWS)(Customer relationship management)
March 18, 2005... Consumers want more simplified products and financial organisations are catering to this requirement. This was the general message from the panel at the recent Australian Banking & Finance Magazine Retail Financial Services seminar held in...

Star performance by Credit Unions.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... CANNEX released its first ever deposit account star ratings earlier this year. The CANNEX deposit account star ratings are intended to be a beacon in the increasingly complex world of personal banking. The keen media interest in this new...

2005 events calendar.(NEWS)(Calendar)
March 18, 2005... The International Consumer Credit Card Summit 2005 Date: 20th April 2005 Time: 7:30am-2:30pm (breakfast, morning tea & lunch) Venue: Skyline Rooms, Level 3, Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre Darling Harbour The premier...

ING Direct continues strong growth.(NEWS)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... ING DIRECT CONTINUES TO DEMONSTRATE THE SUCCESS OF ITS branchless banking model with a profit after tax of $90.5 million for the year ended 31 December 2004. ING Direct CEO Vaughn Richtor said the result was up from $77.9 million reported...

Panellists agree technology is key to customer satisfaction: banks are continuing to invest in technology to better serve customers' needs and in future may share infrastructure to increase efficiencies. These were the key message at the recent Australian Banking & Finance Future Directions in Banking seminar held in Sydney.(Panel Discussion)
March 18, 2005... The panel discussion included three key senior managers from the banking industry: Michael Katz, group executive, premium business sex-vices with the Commonwealth Bank; Mike Pratt, group executive business & consumer banking with Westpac and...

Australian Banking & Finance--the team.(NEWS)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... Gayle Bryant--Features journalist Gayle is a freelance journalist who has written about personal finance and technology issues for more than 15 years. Her work has appeared in the Australian, BRW Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, the...

Cutting cost of compliance.(financial services)
March 18, 2005... Compliance. It's a word that brings joy to grandstanding politicians, dread to company directors and long nights to finance teams and legal counsel. It's also a fact of business life--one whose importance is growing with the expanding ambit of...

The St George SME Awards.(Small and Medium Enterprises )
March 18, 2005... FIRST CHARLTON Communications are pleased to introduce the St.George SME Awards, Australia's first national program recognising best practice amongst Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The awards are organised on business size (based on the...

Fraud in the financial services sector: organisations in Australia and New Zealand lost in excess of $456 million to fraud during the period April 2002 to March 2004 according to a survey undertaken by KPMG in 2004.(NEWS)
March 18, 2005... In addition to the monetary costs of fraud, loss of reputation or damage to one's brand is equally or perhaps even more detrimental. The financial services sector thrives on reputation and customer loyalty, so the incidence of fraud and the...

Call for nominations: Insurance Awards: the annual Insurance Awards are up and running for the third year and Australian Banking & Finance magazine is calling for nominations in all categories.(3RD ANNUAL AUSTRALIAN BANKING & FINANCE INSURANCE AWARDS)
March 18, 2005... The Insurance Awards, which recognise the achievements of individuals and companies in the insurance sector, will be held in Sydney in June this year. Award categories will include Best General Insurance company, Best Life Insurance...

Card reform moves forward: at its meeting in February this year, the Reserve Bank's Payments System Board released draft standards for the EFTPOS and Visa Debit payment systems for public comment.(SPECIAL FEATURE--CREDIT CARDS)
March 18, 2005... The Board also considered the case for designating the American Express and Diners Club payment systems. It concluded, after considering some voluntary changes to current arrangements by American Express and Diners Club, that designation was...

Lack of attention to data quality affects data warehouse acceptance.(SPECIAL FEATURE--STORAGE & DATA WAREHOUSING)
March 18, 2005... Data warehouses play a crucial role in the success of a business intelligence (BI) program. However, through 2007 more than 50 per cent of data warehouse projects will have limited acceptance, or will be outright failures, as a result of a lack...

Selling structured credit products to retail clients: strict regulations and specific market conditions have tested banks' ability to develop and deliver attractive structured credit based products to retail clients.(NEWS)
March 18, 2005... Overseas, banks have rushed to develop new products to attract such customers, based on commodity, rate and other multi asset payoffs. In Europe, one of the latest ideas to capture the imagination of bankers is to market high yielding...

People in glass houses ...(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... Not everyone at NAB is as thrilled with their new home as the bank's propaganda team would have us believe, it seems. Essentially a huge glass atrium, national@docklands (as it is somewhat pretentiously called) was designed by architect James...

Putting the squeeze on.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... Still in Victoria, we hear there was some traditional backroom dealing going on behind the scenes at the recent get together of international fund managers in Melbourne. State officials were putting the squeeze on as part of their eminently...

Sydney bank fashion.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... With senior bank figures like David Murray decrying the trend towards a "Casual Friday" dress code in the financial sector and a general move back to the traditional bank dress code of blue or white shirts, sober ties and lace-up leather shoes,...

Overseas and underpaid.(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... There is some alarm amongst mid-level bankers waiting in the wings for their first overseas posting, we hear. China, where many Australian institutions are poised to do business, is contemplating introducing a law pegging top executive salaries...

And finally.(logo of your bank)(Brief Article)
March 18, 2005... Who was the fairly senior banking executive seen being "poured" into a taxi near an upmarket yacht mooring near Brisbane, while behaving in a loud and aggressive manner. A word to the wise: It's as well not to wear a sweatshirt bearing the name...