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AFR Insights

June

Insurers have been able to pass on cost increases in recent years, but affordability is an issue.

Housing woes collide with climate change and could hit every household

Like housing construction, the insurance industry is at the point where both the corporate and consumer sides are screaming for help.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino at the Financial Review Insurance Forum in Sydney on Tuesday.

Australia’s growing ranks of uninsured has Mulino worried

The Financial Review Insurance Forum examined how risk-based pricing by insurance companies has created social equity problems.

The Granville Harbour Wind Farm in Tasmania is an example of good community engagement, Greg Bourne says.

Australia must overcome these challenges to meet its net zero targets

A massively complex and expensive task is ahead for Australia to decarbonise its power supply and infrastructure. To start, it will take a lot of building.

May

Jeff Byrne

New research reveals business value is driving real-time transition

There’s almost universal awareness of the requirement to transition to real-time payments, new research reveals.

Sponsored 

by Westpac

AFR

Real-time payments’ early adopters reap rewards

With so many competing priorities and limited resources, banks are taking a measured approach to implementing instant payments tech.

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Real-time payments.

Race to real-time payments: big business ditches legacy systems

Two-thirds of big businesses say real-time payments will affect their market position. A new survey shows who’s moving now, and who risks getting left behind.

David Higgins, chief technology officer for financial security and fraud prevention firm, Eftsure, warns real-time payments can equal real-time fraud.

How banks can fight fraud in an instant-payments world

Security needs to be ironclad as faster transactions mean less time to detect and stop illicit flows by cybercriminals.

Westpac customers suffered major outages on three consecutive days this week.

Banks help businesses gain early-mover payments advantage

Lenders are embedding new technologies as regulators breathe down their necks and customers demand instant payments.

Former ASIC deputy head Jeremy Cooper says a legislated objective for superannuation should constrain governments from letting people use super to buy a house.

Cbus joins pilot program to speed up super payments

The fund has been part of the trial with a handful of large construction industry employers to get a clearer picture of how digital payments will work.

New technologies like AI and automation are helping businesses to strengthen their operational resilience.

AI can spot threats before they happen

Australian organisations are drawing on improved technologies to alert them about when and how they need to act.

Long queues of passengers at the check-in counters at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, amid the global IT disruption caused by the Microsoft outage in July last year.

Responsibility for cybersecurity shifts from IT desk to boardrooms

Consumers, shareholders and regulators are increasingly demanding companies take proactive steps to anticipate, mitigate and recover from system failures.

As cybercrime spreads its tentacles, the key is to protect people as far upstream as possible or at the top of the funnel.

How this company succeeds despite the inevitability of ‘failures’

Online travel agency Webjet OTA is building resilience into its operations from the outset.

University of NSW marketing school head Professor Maggie Chuoyan Dong: “It is ideal to have a transparent supply chain, but in reality, very few companies have that transparent supply chain.”

Third-party risks are no longer someone else’s fault

In this hyper-connected world it’s important to remember that ensuring the protection of data along the supply chain is essential.

Jane Stanton, partner for risk consulting at Grant Thornton, says training and awareness is an important line of defence for all organisations.

Cultural resilience key to dealing with crisis

Massive digital disruptions have driven home the need for training and systems to ensure businesses – and all their staff – can instantly respond to outages.

March

Airwallex CEO Jack Zhang.

Bank innovations a slow and steady process

The big four know they must respond to the rapid changes introduced by start-ups, but modernising respected financial institutions is a tall order.

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David Walker, group chief technology officer at Westpac.

AI agents the new frontier in digital banking

The new wave of digitisation is overhauling digital banks, but experts warn that differentiation will be increasingly difficult to achieve.

Kapil Kukreja: “There is considerable investment going into AI by banks.”

AI squeezes the juice from data to stop scams

The technology can find patterns with greater accuracy and identify potential fraudulent transactions faster than any human.

Banks are working through regulatory implications as agentic AI becomes part of the standard financial services tech stack.

Robotic decision-making throws up new risk amid privacy reforms

Increasing use of “agentic AI” means banks must tread carefully to comply with regulations covering personal information.

Technology such as AI and quantum computing will offer a paradigm shift in the way we bank.

Banks brace for AI-powered digital revolution

The sector must confront the twin challenges of dealing with their legacy systems and developing a tech-savvy workforce.

Rodney Sebire,  Zenith Investment Partners.

Global private credit funds set to storm Australia

The attraction of this rapidly rising sector to investors of all sizes is the promise of security and consistently high returns.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/afr-insights-6hq6