News Archive
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2008
Bank News
A Reason For The Busily Engaged Signal
30 April 2008
The decision by National Australia Bank's chief executive, John Stewart, to join the board of Telstra is a bizarre one - unless the announcement of his departure from the bank is less than six months away. I believe this to be the case. NAB is considered to have the best bench strength among its peers and three names have emerged as potential candidates for the top job - the head of New Zealand, Cameron Clyne; the boss of nabCapital, John Hooper; and the industry glamour man in charge of ..... read full story
Cba Could Stay Behind To Move Ahead Of Rivals
30 April 2008
COMMONWEALTH Bank is considering not increasing its standard variable lending rate so it can snare extra market share after the rush of rises from its rivals... read full story
Bank On Corner Key To Celebrity Tax Inquiry
26 April 2008
LUGANO, a small Swiss town just across the border from Italy, has long been notorious as the bank haven of choice for Italian organised crime families... read full story
Anz Lifts Mortgage Rates Again
25 April 2008
ANZ Bank sent its mortgage holders into the long weekend with yet another rate rise yesterday, lifting its variable mortgage rate by 0.10 percentage points to 9.47 per cent - the highest of Australia's big four banks... read full story
Collateral Damage
25 April 2008
The Opes debacle has eroded the foundations of ANZ's reputation, but there were already problems lurking in the bank that John built. Danny John and Stuart Washington report... read full story
Hours Set To Suit
25 April 2008
These days, working for a bank can mean having flexible arrangements, writes Valerie Khoo... read full story
Memo Credit Suisse: Banks For The Memories
25 April 2008
SWISS bank Credit Suisse has provided some perspective about the state of Australia's banks, announcing its first quarterly loss in almost five years... read full story
Angry Anz Chief Admits Opes Link Has Harmed Bank
24 April 2008
A "PISSED off" ANZ chief executive has vowed to eliminate any laxness at the bank, acknowledging that its involvement with collapsed broker Opes Prime has damaged its reputation. Melbourne-based Chimaera Financial Group, which has been the subject of speculation about its financial strength, said yesterday it would raise additional equity of $65 million. Almost all will come from ANZ, which will be invited to appoint directors to Chimaera's board... read full story
Anz Bails Out Chimaera With $55m
24 April 2008
ANZ Bank has bailed out the embattled financial services provider Chimaera Capital, saving the bank from being associated with another failed margin lender less than a month after the Opes Prime collapse... read full story
Anz Tucks It Away For Rainy Day
24 April 2008
ANZ chief executive Mike Smith has defended his bank's 14% dip in profit, saying Australian banks' additional credit costs "barely register" when compared with their international peers... read full story
Bank Goes To The Rescue Of Stocks Lender Chimaera
24 April 2008
ANZ Bank moved to bail out troubled margin lender Chimaera Capital yesterday and has not ruled out a deal with the Opes Prime's administrator to pay out disgruntled creditors and head off years of lawsuits and bitter publicity... read full story
German Bank Goes Hard On Sex Expenses
23 April 2008
DEUTSCHE Bank, Germany's largest, has been hit by the global credit crunch so badly that it has issued a memorandum to senior executives telling them brothel visits and adult channels in hotel rooms cannot be claimed on expenses... read full story
Rba May Buy Into Ebay's Paypal Push
23 April 2008
EBAY'S plan to force all its users on to PayPal faces opposition from the Reserve Bank, which is considering weighing into the issue... read full story
Curious Behaviour At The Rba
22 April 2008
The Reserve Bank has followed its central bank counterparts in the US and Britain as a white knight for banks struggling to fund their structured mortgage products, making an unprecedented $1.1 billion two-day intervention to buy bunches of mortgages... read full story
Rba Takes $1b Risk To Help Banks
22 April 2008
THE Reserve Bank of Australia has exposed itself to more than $1 billion worth of household mortgages in the past few days as it seeks to spark life into moribund debt markets and help banks continue lending... read full story
Today's Episode Of The Loan Rangers: When Bad News Is Good News
22 April 2008
INVESTORS have got used to bad news, especially when it's emanating from a massive US bank... read full story
Anz Faces Grilling On Bad Loans
21 April 2008
MIKE SMITH, ANZ's chief executive, will be forced to come to terms with the bank's first underlying profit slump in more than a decade, with analysts forecasting a fall to $1.6 billion - more than 10 per cent below its first-half result last year... read full story
Opes And Bad Loan Provisions Eat Into Anz
21 April 2008
ANZ chief executive Mike Smith will have to come to terms with the bank's first underlying profit decline in more than 10 years on Wednesday, with analysts forecasting profit will fall to $1.6 billion. This would be more than 10% below its first-half result last year... read full story
Short-term Fix: Reserve In $320m Mortgage Deal
21 April 2008
THE total freeze in the securitised home loan market and the consequent dangers to ordinary Australian home loan borrowers have been recognised in an unusual Reserve Bank action to buy mortgagebacked securities... read full story
Anz Executives In Firing Line
16 April 2008
KEY executives within ANZ's financial institution products division - and its powers of approving tens of millions of dollars of loans - are expected to be targets of the wide-ranging investigation of the bank's links with the failed stockbroker Opes Prime... read full story
Rba Takes Hard Line On Bail-outs
16 April 2008
GOVERNMENTS around the world must not bow to pressure to bail out the private shareholders or managers of troubled financial institutions, the Reserve Bank of Australia governor, Glenn Stevens, said yesterday... read full story
Smith Takes Charge Of Opes Fiasco
15 April 2008
THE growing damage to ANZ's reputation caused by the fallout from the collapsed stockbroker Opes Prime has prompted the chief executive, Michael Smith, to take charge of a wide internal investigation into the bank's role in the affair... read full story
Opes Shortfall Doubled In A Week
14 April 2008
THE financial "black hole" that consumed Opes Prime was closer to $200 million - more than twice the original estimate - when its main lender, ANZ Bank, decided to pull its support for the ailing stockbroking company... read full story
A Prime Time To Snap Up Bargains
13 April 2008
JUST one of the games being played out on the market is based on ANZ Bank's daily list of stocks that it has taken charge of following the Opes Prime collapse... read full story
Central Bankers Caught Napping By The Financial Crisis
12 April 2008
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world..." Humphrey Bogart's famous line from Casablanca is probably the least amusing line of all right now to Ian Macfarlane, the former head of the Reserve Bank of Australia, and lauded by some as the best central banker of his era in the world... read full story
Saved From Sale: Opes Victims Get More Time
12 April 2008
A MALAYSIAN steel maker and the managing director of a small Perth mining company were successful yesterday in their joint attempt to prevent ANZ Bank from selling shares the bank seized from the collapsed stockbroker Opes Prime... read full story
Bank Looks To Sticky Deposits
11 April 2008
THE Bank of Queensland has tweaked the franchise system of running its retail banking network to persuade customers to increase deposits as a way of counteracting the impact of the global credit crunch... read full story
Bank Looks To Sticky Deposits To Stay Strong
11 April 2008
THE Bank of Queensland has tweaked the franchise system of running its retail banking network to persuade customers to increase deposits as a way of counteracting the impact of the global credit crunch... read full story
Bank's Sunny Result Fails To Shift Market Clouds
11 April 2008
AN UNCERTAIN future has tempered the response to Bank of Queensland's strong growth and record half-year profit of $65.3 million... read full story
Bank Gears Up For Battle On Customer Service
10 April 2008
Can Westpac juggle being a 'nice bank' for the environment with being good to its customers? Julian Lee reports... read full story
Anz Pre-empts With $975m Hit
9 April 2008
THE prospect of a capital raising by ANZ Bank has grown as investors yesterday digested its near-$1 billion provisions for bad debts amid the likelihood of more loans to the troubled corporate sector going sour... read full story
Bad Criticism, Without Reserve
9 April 2008
GLENN STEVENS, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, must be wondering about his new-found celebrity. Since opening up the central bank's deliberations about interest rate settings, he has suddenly found himself a tabloid villain, callously turning the mortgage repayment screws on hapless families in the western suburbs. The Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, and some retailers have joined the hue and cry... read full story
No Intervention In Exchange Closure
9 April 2008
THE community-based Bendigo Bank has said it will not intervene in the National Stock Exchange's decision to close its Newcastle business... read full story
Reserve Rises Go Too Far, Says Nelson
8 April 2008
THE Treasurer, Wayne Swan, has expressed his full support for the independence of the Reserve Bank, after the federal Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, accused it of going too far in lifting interest rates... read full story
Whiff Shifts To Another Pile-up
8 April 2008
Mr Smith, what a mess. The ANZ Banking Group has taken a commanding lead in the race for line honours to determine the bank most likely to end the decade in disgrace... read full story
Indonesia's Bank Blues Put Yudhoyono Under Pressure
5 April 2008
Bribery allegations and a quest for a new governor have embroiled Bank Indonesia. Mark Forbes reports from Jakarta... read full story
Rates Up At Commbank
5 April 2008
THE big banks continue to feed their borrowers bad news, with Commonwealth Bank last night announcing it will increase mortgage rates by 12 basis points... read full story
The Next Move On Interest Rates Is Probably Down, Reserve Bank Chief Hints
5 April 2008
RESERVE Bank governor Glenn Stevens has sent a strong hint that interest rates have probably peaked, and that the next move could be down - although it may be some way off... read full story
Coveted Legacy Doesn't Look So Good As The Tricoms Come Home To Roost
2 April 2008
It would be a bittersweet time for the ANZ chairman, Charles Goode. After a long turf war with the bank's former chief executive John McFarlane, over who would leave the bank first, Goode retained his ground... read full story
Rba Expected To Hold Rates As Slowdown Emerges
1 April 2008
AS THE Reserve Bank board meets in Sydney today to discuss interest rates, reports show the economy is slowing while inflationary pressures are building, and small business owners foresee recession within three years... read full story
