Australian Banking & Finance articles from November 2004

Australian Banking & Finance archives from November 2004

GE to unleash mortgage beast: the Australian home lending market is poised to enter a new level of competition with GE Money becoming a major competitor to the top five banks through its $400 million-plus acquisition of the Wizard Home Loans brand.(News)(GE Money Australia & New Zealand)
November 17, 2004... GE HAS LONG BEEN TOUTED AS the company most likely to issue a real challenge to Australia's incumbent heavyweights and its move into the mortgage space is widely seen as the precursor to action not seen since Aussie Home Loans turned the market...

How the market reacted.
November 17, 2004... "We are taking a very long-term view. I think the market in Australia probably peaked last year and has had a very orderly movement toward a plateau. We are looking at the next 10 years, the next 50 years. And mortgages are certainly going to...

Major insurers to discuss key issues.(Current Account)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... AUSTRALIAN BANKING & FINANCE newsmagazine is showcasing the country's top insurers at a special luncheon in Sydney on December 15. Some of the winners of our annual Insurance Awards will discuss key issues going forward at the Luncheon,...

Mackay society upbeat.(Current Account)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... REGIONAL FINANCE GROUP Mackay Permanent Building Society remains optimistic about the future despite some concerns about the fluctuating property market. Chairman Richard Wallace said an ongoing process of change at the society was...

Banking world.(Current Account)
November 17, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Heritage Building Society last month launched new lending products at functions in Adelaide, Helbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The launches involved networking and drinks sessions for the mortgage broking industry....

ANZ enters Cambodia.(Current Account)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... ANZ HAS SIGNED AN AGREEMENT with Royal Group, Cambodia's leading mobile telecommunications company, to establish a joint venture bank in Cambodia. The joint venture bank will create a retail banking presence which contributes to Cambodia's...

Foreign banks target China.(Current Account)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... CHINA'S BANKS FACE A FIRE-storm of competition as the country's market opens to foreigners by 2007, spurring a mad scramble for experienced, global banks. In Shanghai alone, foreign banks have 65 branches and more than 90 representative...

On the record.(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... "I think we are turning to an economy which is on the mature end of the cycle and therefore we should look towards much more normal circumstances we had over the last few years." ANZ CHIEF JOHN MCFARLANE SUGGESTING MORE DIFFICULT TIMES LAY...

St George CEO Gail Kelly has delivered again, announcing a 16% rise in annual profit to $717 million.(News)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... ST GEORGE CEO GAIL KELLY HAS DELIVERED AGAIN, announcing a 16% rise in annual profit to $717 million. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said the sound profit result was within expectations and reflected the strength of core retail, banking...

Payment squeeze likely.(News)
November 17, 2004... BANKS FACE A FIERCE SQUEEZE on their Lucrative payments business, which could undermine their overall profitability, according to a new global, study by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report, Preparing for the Endgame: Global,...

Canberra the king of Generation Y.(facts & figures)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... THE ACT HAD THE HIGHEST proportion (16%) of 15-24 year olds in its population of all the states and territories at 2001, according to new analysis of previously released Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data. The analysis also showed...

Award categories increased.(News)(15th annual 2005 Australian Banking & Finance newsmagazine Awards)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... NOMINATIONS ARE BEING invited for the 15th annual 2005 Australian Banking & Finance newsmagazine Awards. Optus is again sponsoring the premier event on the financial services industry calendar and next year we have added two new...

CISCO signs on for new lectures.(News)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... CISCO SYSTEMS HAS TEAMED up with Australian Banking & Finance newsmagazine to present our annual Lecture Series in 2004-05. The series will feature four of the top executives in the financial services industry. Details will be provided...

Insurance boom times over: report: exceptional performance in the insurance industry over the past 12 months has created what many consider to be a "perfect storm", according to Shane Fitzgerald, senior insurance analyst at JPMorgan.(News)
November 17, 2004... Fitzgerald was speaking at the launch of the JPMorgan/Deloitte 2004 General Insurance Industry Survey, which for the past 12 years has provided a detailed overview of the current state of the Australian general insurance industry and the...

Banks improve client relations.(News)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... THE NUMBER OF DISPUTES LODGED with the Banking and Financial Services Ombudsman has fatten by 15.5% which means banks' efforts in improving customer dispute resolution systems are paying off. The decline in banking disputes for the second...

Comminsure laments cover.(News)
November 17, 2004... LESS THAN ONE IN THREE Australian adults aged 18-59 have a personal life insurance policy and the rest of us are retying on insurance provided with our compulsory super, or nothing at all, a new survey by the Commonwealth Bank Group's insurance...

ANZ needs to boost deposits.(News)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... RATINGS AGENCY STANDARD & Poor's says a key challenge for ANZ Bank is to grow its retail deposits. S&P said the bank's full-year earnings result for the year to September 2004 was sound and within expectations, with post-tax profits...

Customer service skirts key to broker success: you'd be hard pressed to find a more diverse bunch than those in the mortgage broking industry--from bankers to bakers to spinal prosthesis makers.(News)
November 17, 2004... MORTGAGE BROKER, MORTGAGE Choice has released the results of its annual Franchise Recruitment Index, revealing people from all backgrounds decide mortgage broking is the career for them. The Index analyses the background and personal...

Faces of banking & finance 2004.(News)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... WESTPAC HAS APPOINTED ROB Whitfield as chief risk officer. He was previously group treasurer for five years and will be replaced by Curt Zuber. Whitfield has been with Westpac for 19 years and replaces Jim Coleman who retired earlier this...

Another view.(News; Commercial banks)
November 17, 2004... The practice of "tying"--making access to credit contingent on the purchase of other financial services--is rapidly becoming common among commercial banks, according to the Association for Financial Professionals' [AFP's] 2004 Credit Access...

Whatever happened to Rob Ferguson?(News; Investment bankers)(Brief Article)
November 17, 2004... FORMER INVESTMENT banker Rob Ferguson spends most of his time these days devoted to the racing industry, but has retained various interests in the business world. He is chairman of Vodafone Pacific and was a director of Westfield Holdings...

Bridging the gap in data management.(News)
November 17, 2004... BUSINESS INVOLVES VAST quantities of data, some of it in structured transactions but much of it is in free-form text or records. Regardless of its form, all data can add value to the organisation if it is able to be accessed, analysed and...

Financial institutions high on trust.(News)
November 17, 2004... FINANCIAL SERVICES organisations are among the most trustworthy organisations in the community regarding the protection and use of personal information. Research conducted for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner by Roy Morgan Research,...

Operational risk and information security: in 1991, BCCI buckled under the weight of some $10 billion in losses, stemming from a breathtaking range of illegal activities.(Special report: Basel II)
November 17, 2004... Four years later, Daiwa New York lost $1.1 billion through unauthorised trading. Also in 1995 came the Barings collapse, in which a 233-year-old banking institution was brought down by a single rogue trader in derivatives. The...

Consolidating risk systems.(Special report: Basel II)
November 17, 2004... RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS have historically been considered back office functions, administered by finance with the information available to relatively few. But times are changing. The Basel II Capital Accord, finalised in June, requires a...

Behind the screens.
November 17, 2004... Wizard founder Hark Bouris has reportedly scooped $100 million for himself out of the sale of the business to GE Money, but that won't change him. He's staying on as executive chairman and says he "won't be taking my hand off the wheel". Bouris...

Big Four focus on costs: Australia's four major banks remain focused on becoming more efficient and are continuing to engineer significant productivity gains, through the increasing use of technology and re-engineering back office processes.
November 30, 2004... The Big Four has reported record total profits of $11.1 billion for the past year, which represents an increase of 5.8 per cent on last year's reported earnings. And, according to analysis by PricewaterhoueCoopers, there is still room for...

NAB wins back customer support.(National Australia Bank Ltd.)
November 30, 2004... AFTER A POSITIVE BOUNCE BACK by NAB, customer satisfaction levels across Australia's four major banks were the most even in the past 12 months, according to the September quarter of Nielsen Media Research's customer satisfaction survey. ...

Rabobank dives into transaction banking: major agricultural lender Rabobank has made its long-expected expansion into transactional banking in Australia with the launch of a multipurpose banking facility especially designed for the rural market.(Current Account)(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... Rabobank Australia & New Zealand CEO Bruce Dick said the move into the provision of transactional banking services was an important milestone in the bank's ongoing development in Australia. In recent years, Rabobank, the world's leading...

Banking world.(Current Account)(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... SUNCORP METWAY HAS extended its outsourcing agreement with Unisys Payment Services for payment processing by two years. The contract also includes additional services to archive cheque and related document images. Suncorp has outsourced...

Margin lending winners.(Current Account)(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... BORROWERS ARE THE CLEAR winners from increased competition in the margin lending sector, according to independent financial, services research firm, CANNEX, which has released its latest CANNEX margin tending star rating. Macquarie Margin...

Executives embrace segmentation.(another view)
November 30, 2004... IT'S NO SECRET THAT MARKETING productivity in the financial, services industry has fatten to critically low levels. Credit card offers stuff mailboxes as response rates drop ever lower. Ubiquitous telemarketing efforts for products...

On the record.(Current Account)
November 30, 2004... "NAB was in a state of self-delusion, where people started believing their own propaganda, that the bank was the biggest and the best and these were small problems that would go away." NAB CHIEF JOHN STEWART ON THE PREVEIOUS MANAGEMENT. ...

Changing the customer experience.(News)
November 30, 2004... NO ON CAN DENY THAT IN THE face of increasing competition from a number of areas, financial services firms in Australia are dedicating substantial, resources towards customer relationship management [CRM). Whether focused on marketing,...

Westpac launches online job market.(News)(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... WESTPAC HAS LAUNCHED A new online job market for its 26,000 staff to stay in touch with job opportunities around the organisation and manage their own careers. The tool called Careers@ Westpac, built around Taleo Corporation's Enterprise...

Award categories increased.(News)(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... NOMINATIONS ARE BEING invited for the 15th annual 2005 Australian Banking & Finance newsmagazine Awards. Optus is again sponsoring the premier event on the financial services industry calendar and next year we have added two new...

Cisco signs on for new lecturers.(News)(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... CISCO SYSTEMS HAS TEAMED up with Australian Banking & Finance newsmagazine to present our annual Lecture Series in 2004-05. The series will feature four of the top executives in the financial, services industry. Details will be...

Record trend of growth continues.(Special feature: 2004 Australian Banking review)
November 30, 2004... UNDERPINNED BY A HEALTHY ECONOMY and a benign credit environment Australia's four major banks have continued the tong trend of growth. Collectively the four major banks reported record total profits of $11.1 billion, which represents an...

Regionals face margin pressure.(Special feature: 2004 Australian Banking review)
November 30, 2004... FAVORABLE OPERATING CONDITIONS, combined with careful and well-executed strategies, have strengthened the business foundations of the rated regional banks and non-bank financial institutions in Australia, collectively known as regional...

Chief executive overview.(Special feature: 2004 Australian Banking review)
November 30, 2004... "OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS WE WILL HAVE A GREATER EMPHASIS on superior revenue growth and increased investment to achieve this. White we recognise that cost reduction opportunities are becoming more limited, we intend to continue reducing our...

Branch levels rise.(Special feature: 2004 Australian Banking review)(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... BANKS HAVE INCREASED BRANCH levels every year for the past three years, according to survey data released by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). Over the past three years (since the survey began in 2001), banks have...

Regulatory challenges ahead: while it has been another solid year of growth for the five major Australian banks, significant challenges lie ahead including the divergence of regulation and accounting regimes potentially affecting profit and loss volatility, according to Ernst & Young's annual banking results analysis.(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Baset II will substantially change the way banks account for potential loan tosses. The new IFRS standard will only allow loan Losses to be provided for once they have been incurred,...

Special feature 2004 Australian Banking review--monetary milestones.
November 30, 2004... 1817--The founding of the first Australian bank, the Bank of NSW The business of banking in various parts of Australia was carried out by private trading banks, incorporated by charter, by statute, or under the Companies Act. Some of these...

Special feature 2004 Australian Banking review.
November 30, 2004... Adelaide Bank. Headquarters: 90 King William St, Adelaide, South Australia, 5000 Telephone: [08] 8300 6000 Adelaide Bank is one of Australia's newer regional banks and is also one of the nation's fastest growing. Formed in 1994, from...

Concerns over identity theft: as concerns over identity theft intensify, so do debates within the financial services community over exactly what type of crime is at the heart of the matter.(News)
November 30, 2004... At issue is the distinction between identity theft and identity fraud and whether the identity theft threat actually matches the hype. Formally defined, identity theft involves financial or other personal information stolen with the intent...

Whatever happened to? Bob Joss.(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... BOB JOSS HAS BEEN ACTIVE ON the professional and academic front since leaving Westpac in 1998. Soon after he left his job as CEO of Australia's first bank Joss returned to the US and became the eighth dean of the Stanford Graduate School of...

CommInsure to improve service time.(News)
November 30, 2004... THE COMMONWEALTH BANK'S insurance arm, CommInsure aims to enhance its customer service by introducing a new IT system, FINEOS Front Office, to support its sates and servicing operation, including new business and claims management. The...

Aggregator opens doors to business.(News)(X Inc. )(Brief Article)
November 30, 2004... AUSTRALIA'S NEWEST FINANCE aggregators X Inc. has opened its doors in Sydney. Ex Aussie Home Loan's general, manager, sales, John Kolenda and operations manager, Dean Rushton have joined forces with Jennifer Nielsen (ex recruitment...

Optus, VeriSign form partnership: an IT and telecommunications provider with an IT security specialist make a great match if you are looking to conduct business over the internet.(News)
November 30, 2004... Optus and VeriSign Australia have signed an agreement to deriver world-class managed security solutions to the Australian market. Organisations can now benefit from the combined strengths of both companies to provide leading-edge technology...

BankWest: a better deal for customers and business bankers: the recent launch of BankWest Direct, with its aggressively priced retail deposit products and bold 'join the rebellion' ad campaign has left the banking industry wondering, what's next for BankWest?(Professional Opportunities)
November 30, 2004... As if in response to that question, BankWest's Corporate and Commercial Banking division has recently announced its intention to significantly expand its operations across the eastern seaboard. As part of its major national growth strategy,...

Behind the screens.(News; National Australia Bank Ltd.)
November 30, 2004... Screens has just spent a week in Melbourne and the only game in town is NAB. Everyone we encountered in the banking world couldn't help but raise the performance of the company and pass an opinion or two about the group's future under the new...

Foreign exchange service.(News)
November 30, 2004... AS BANKERS REALISE, THERE ARE only two ways to make money out of foreign exchange these days. The first one is to achieve significant volume, the second is to develop complexity of products for clients that can be sold at a fair margin....