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Big four

Yesterday

Consumer data right is meant to make switching accounts and finding cheaper products easier.

Fintechs accuse banks of sabotage on ‘open banking’

The start-ups attacked the banks for trying to sabotage the consumer data right, arguing figures on low usage misrepresent growing interest in account switching.

  • James Eyers
Consumer data right is meant to make switching accounts and finding cheaper products easier.

Senate to vote next month on extending data right for bank switching

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is working through banks’ concerns about the consumer data right, as the Senate forced a vote on a bill to extend it by mid-August.

  • James Eyers and John Kehoe
Consumer data right was meant to make switching accounts and finding cheaper products easier. Instead, the banks say, it has cost more than $1.5 billion and had little uptake.

Banks spent $1.5b on account switching. No one is using it

The consumer data right, which has already cost banks $1.5 billion, is too complicated and doesn’t have a clear use four years after launch, major lenders say.

  • James Eyers
Consumer data right was meant to make it easier for bank customers to switch if they found cheaper products – and for competitors to offer better services with access to more data.

They built it – but nobody came. Consumer data right needs help

Privately, bank bosses remain highly agitated about being more open about the valuable data they hold, the sharing of which could make competition more intense.

  • James Eyers
It’s no surprise that a non-market-facing government bureaucracy has failed to turbo-charge competition.

Open banking offers a salutary tale

The lesson is that governments trying to regulate their way to a greater bank competition can have anti-competitive effects.

  • The AFR View
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This Month

ANZ was found to have charged fees to deceased estates.

ANZ lashed for charging fees to dead people

The Banking Code Compliance Committee said deficiencies in the bank’s compliance frameworks for dealing with deceased estates were “deeply concerning”.

  • James Eyers
National Australia Bank has been growing mortgages the slowest of the majors, with annualised growth of just 0.5 per cent.

Rising interest rates are bad news for bank stocks

Another cash rate increase would do more damage to arrears than it would help net interest margins, according to Morgan Stanley.

  • James Eyers

June

The sneaky-good trade this financial year was staring every investor in the face. Few fund managers cashed in.

This year’s winners were hiding in plain sight

Australia’s fund managers were chasing their tails from November when the market started running. Plenty never caught up, and one sector proved most costly.

  • Anthony Macdonald
The market’s focus will turn to deal integration, but Shayne Elliott says the task is one of customer migration.

ANZ boss says Suncorp ‘migration’ can avoid Westpac’s St George pain

Shayne Elliott insists he’s learnt from Westpac’s failure to integrate St George, while Suncorp’s Steve Johnston says he can now focus fully on insurance.

  • James Eyers, Liam Walsh and Tom Richardson
ANZ will finally be able to take over Suncorp Bank following Treasurer approval for the $4.9b deal.

Chalmers approves ANZ’s $4.9b Suncorp deal

The decision paves the way for the biggest merger in banking since the Commonwealth Bank took out ailing Bankwest during the global financial crisis in 2008.

  • Updated
  • James Eyers
ANZ, along with other major banks, are warning that mortgage lending is increasingly restricted to the very wealthy.

Lending rules ‘locking out’ house buyers: ANZ CEO

The banks have become increasingly strident in their criticism of lending rules, warning it is preventing access to home loans except for the wealthy.

  • James Eyers
ASIC chairman Joe Longo. “While there’s much that’s good in the code, we need to be alive to apathy, complacency or in the worst circumstances, backsliding.”

ASIC warns banks not to become complacent with new code

ASIC has approved a new Banking Code of Practice, but chairman Joe Longo says lenders must be alive to the dangers of “apathy, complacency and backsliding”. 

  • James Eyers
APRA’s chairman, John Lonsdale. “Most of the framework is principles-based, which creates significant room for banks to run their businesses the way they want.”

APRA chairman: I won’t be winding back the regulatory clock

John Lonsdale hit back at CEOs seeking relief, declaring current APRA restrictions as deliberate and appropriate, in a speech at an ABA event on Wednesday.

  • James Eyers
Hirsch & Faigen’s off-the-plan project at Mermaid Beach, Queensland, is one of the developments on the Coposit platform.

Property payment fintech Coposit taps Ad Astra for a $10m fundraise

The platform allows buyers to pick up an off-the-plan property for $10,000, saving for the remainder of the deposit during the construction in instalments.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Non-bank lender Zagga is providing a $28m loan to fund the upgrade of Invicta House, an office building in Melbourne.

Banks’ pullback from offices, hotels opens door for non-bank lenders

With the bank sector reducing exposure to assets like commercial property, residential subdivisions and tourism, alternative players can now grab them.

  • Larry Schlesinger
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Peter Fox, executive chairman of Linfox: “We have been holding something like a hot potato that has been burning at $1 million a week for the last three years.”

Armaguard and the banks now trust each other, says Linfox chairman

There has been a big turnaround in the relationship between the cash transport monopoly and its eight biggest customers.

  • James Eyers
A cash injection of $50 million will keep Armaguard afloat for at least another year.

Armaguard secures deal with banks, supermarkets to save cash

Months after a bailout collapsed, the eight largest customers of Linfox’s Armaguard have agreed to a $50 million injection to keep cash circulating.

  • James Eyers
Perplexity search could take over Google.

Union calls for ‘moratorium’ on AI-job losses in banking sector

The Finance Sector Union wants laws to ensure gains from artificial intelligence are passed on as pay rises and halt job losses to allow workers to retrain.

  • David Marin-Guzman
The Commonwealth Bank building in Sydney. The bank is on its way to becoming the country’s largest listed company.

CBA rally threatens to dethrone BHP as ASX top stock

A 25 per cent rally in the country’s largest bank has placed it within striking distance of the miner, which has been Australia’s most valuable listed company for more than two years.

  • Updated
  • Joshua Peach and Tom Richardson
Westpac chief executive of institutional banking Nell Hutton. “When I thought about where I could have an impact, it made sense to think about the big four [banks].”

From Goldman Sachs to Westpac, Nell Hutton is climbing the ladder

Having reached the top of the Wall Street giant by her mid-40s, the career banker has big plans to turn around Westpac’s once-dominant institutional bank.

  • James Eyers

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/big-four-banks-5ux