Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull attending Westpac’s 199th birthday lunch in Sydney on Wednesday.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has given banks a bollocking for unethical behaviour, suggesting they have not repaid the support they received during the global financial crisis.
An excavator clears land for a palm oil plantation in southern Sierra Leone for a Lichtenstein-based a company. Such projects are criticised by some as ‘land grabs’.
Reuters/Simon Akam
International development banks are supposed to ensure adherence to human rights in the projects they fund. Instead, their practices provide fertile ground for human rights abuses.
Phishing is a growing problem across Africa. South Africa has the highest number of victims.
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Cyber security has been identified as a global challenge, with Africa facing renewed threats through increasing internet use across many platforms.
A Kenyan woman does a financial transaction using her mobile phone.
Africaknows/Joshua Wanyama
Financial inclusion has so far focused on enhancing a poor person’s cash flow. But it needs to involve more. Not enough consideration is given to encouraging poor people to build assets.
The snail’s pace of switching between Australian banks deserves attention.
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More robust competition between banks would benefit consumers, but there’s little policy focus on the issue.
Good for humanity?
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Australia’s biggest banks seem more concerned with disclosing how much paper they recycle than their lending exposure to coal mines.
When banks fail, it’s customers that usually end up out of pocket.
Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
A flat rate bank deposit tax could be distorting, and not for the reasons the banks suggest.
The National Bank of Austria, the most recent example of central bank nationalisation.
Reuters
The continued ownership of shares in central banks by private investors may be a superfluous relic but it enhances governance and adds to the transparency and accountability of central banks.
In bank stress tests, what’s worse: runs or lemons (the other kind)?
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US regulators chose to reveal detailed information to the public about the state of the banks. They were able to be so transparent, without triggering a run, because of a strong fiscal backstop.
Australian banks have been lauded internationally for sustainability, but dogged by domestic scandal.
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There is a schism between the symbolic and substantive sustainability efforts of our Big Four banks.
Athens is the epicentre of a dangerous relationship.
Simela Pantartzi/EPA
A continent in shock; a country on the brink; and a model for punitive debt negotiations that serves no one but the banks.
Only one banker has been forced to serve prison time as a result of the global financial crisis.
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Jailing bankers for failing to uphold an ethical code is possible - it’s simply a matter of enforcing current laws.
HSBC heading for the bright lights.
Alex Hofford/EPA
Is the business models which large banks have relied upon for the last three decades dead?
The FDIC sold nearly 500 banks in the financial crisis, losing $90 billion in the process.
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The FDIC – and taxpayers – lost US$90 billion selling almost 500 failed banks. Where did all those banks go?
Bulls dominate Wall Street but behind them always lurks a big bear.
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Bankers are back to their old ways, putting the global economy at risk just six years after standing at the brink of another Great Depression.
Fighting the debt effect. Greece is struggling at every level.
psyberartist
A call to break with the leadership of Greece’s ruling party has highlighted the futility of debt-led austerity and the burden it places on people on the wrong side of a banker’s bad bet.
Are loans guaranteed by parents adding unnecessary risk to the market?
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First home buyers looking to break into the housing market are turning to their parents, but it’s not a risk-free proposition for either party.
Like the banks, John Gotti was known as the ‘teflon don’ because of prosecutors’ failure to convict him for his alleged crimes.
FBI
Banks have become like Wall Street versions of “teflon don” John Gotti, able to avoid conviction despite repeated criminal prosecutions.
Too big to manage?
Laura Lean/PA Wire
With more than 250,000 employees, spread over 80 countries, how can HSBC’s bosses know everything going on?
How to stop bank CEOs rolling the dice.
washingtonydc
Behind all the hand-wringing over financial executive pay is a desire to moderate risk-taking. Financial markets may already have the answer to hand.