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30 April 2026
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Stablecoins have been hyped as a gamechanger for the payments industry. But while they could find success in certain niches, a broader upheaval of Visa and Mastercard's payments dominance looks unlikely.
A recent ruling from The Australian Financial Complaints Authority may herald a new era for financial scams. For the first time, a bank is being forced to reimburse a customer for the amount they were scammed.
Australians are paying almost two billion dollars in credit and debit card fees each year and the RBA wil now probe the whole payment system. What changes are needed to ensure the system is fair and transparent?
Cheques and bank service, or the lack of, were major topics when I addressed a seniors’ group recently. The word had got out that the government was phasing out cheques, and many in the audience were feeling abandoned.
APRA's objections to hybrids are misplaced. If the regulator wants more safety in our banking system, it will come at the expense of effectiveness, and that's why wholesale changes to the hybrid market are unlikely.
Australian banks are the Pilbara of the global financial system, with irreplaceable assets that are among the world's best. Current bank hybrid prices offer favourable rewards with limited risk for investors.
Usually, credit crunches come before banking crises, but this time it might happen the other way around. Here are the likely paths forward, what things that investors should monitor and the best places to hide.
Paraphrasing Paul Keating, Don Sanders was central to the transformation of Australia into an open economy in the 1990s. We look back at an extraordinary career that straddled central banking and commercial banking.
With stronger capital positions, improved brand equity and the potential to benefit from a robust post-pandemic recovery, the global banking sector is presenting significant opportunities for investors.
Australia's major banks face many challenges but they are strong and remarkably adaptive and resilient. They have also finally accepted they are too big to behave badly.
The big institutions looked outside banking for growth, but found complex conglomerate structures hard to manage and needing different skills. Now it's back to basics, just as another challenge looms.
The Commonwealth Bank's reputation has taken a battering at the Royal Commission, and a veteran of 13 years on the top table of the Bank's Executive Committee explains what went wrong and where we should head.
Stay on top of the latest changes to superannuation rates and thresholds for 2026, including increases to transfer balance cap, concessional contributions cap, and non-concessional contributions cap.
The Strait of Hormuz closure due to US-Iran conflict severely disrupted global energy supply chains. While various emergency measures mitigated the crude impact, the refined product market faces unprecedented stress.
The perceived underperformance of LICs compared to ETFs is due to existing comparison data excluding crucial information, highlighting the need for proper assessment and transparent reporting.
The Home Equity Access Scheme in Australia allows older homeowners to tap into their home equity for retirement income, yet remains underused due to lack of awareness and its perceived complexity.
Debate over the CGT discount is intensifying amid concerns about intergenerational equity and housing affordability. This analysis shows that the 'discount' does not necessarily favor property investors.
The new super tax, applying from 1 July, introduces more than just a higher rate on large balances. It brings into focus a misalignment between where wealth sits and where the tax on that wealth ultimately falls.