Amy Auster, Australian Centre for Financial Studies
Venture capital money is starting to flow into Australian fintech, but success will largely be based on whether new players can innovate in areas where bank’s aren’t.
With rates on the way down the problem of runaway property investing has been left to the regulator APRA. But regulators should not be used as agents of short-term government policy.
The Dodd-Frank Act is the Obama Administration’s cornerstone financial reform legislation, but even after several years it remains only partially implemented and subject to collective shrugs and head-scratching…
“Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive”. Sir Walter Scott’s comment could have been made about the LIBOR and foreign exchange (forex) scandals engulfing the world’s largest…
While financial planning is on the pathway to professionalism, its education standards continue to be the subject of much discussion – and for good reason. The current standards set by ASIC mandate a comparatively…
The subprime crisis and the subsequent failure of Lehman Brothers came as such a shock – and the repercussions were so severe that when the time came to mount a response, policy makers were as surprised…
The biggest open secret in the financial world has been confirmed. Regulators in the UK, the US and Switzerland have announced massive fines for some of the world’s largest banks for a manipulation of…
The announcement that payday lending industry will – finally – see a cap on the cost of credit is welcome news. But any belief that this one simple measure will eliminate the industry would be mis-guided…
In the last decade or so, the global financial landscape has endured two major shocks - the first with the 2007 collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States, and the second emanating…
The global financial crisis had many causes. But it was generally acknowledged at the time and since, that failures of ethics, integrity and trust were an important part of the problem. US Republican Senator…
Recently, the head of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Greg Medcraft, called Australia a “paradise” for white-collar criminals. Soon after he recanted, claiming he didn’t want the…
Following its stepped up year-long review of European banks, the European Central Bank this weekend failed 25 of the 130 banks it tested on the strength of their capital buffers to protect against a downturn…
Jean Tirole has won a deserved Nobel prize. The French economist from Toulouse 1 Capitole University has made some significant contributions to almost all fields in economics, but it is his work in the…
Has Wonga gone out of its mind? Yesterday it effectively wrote off £220m owed to the payday lend by 330,000 borrowers who were more than 30 days in arrears in paying back their debt. It might seem like…