Financial Services News

Prudential regulator APRA has accepted a court enforceable undertaking (CEU) from and imposed a higher capital add-on to the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), expressing “long-standing concerns” over the bank’s non-financial risk management practices and risk culture”. The...

Cybersecurity is no longer just a concern for IT boffins — it is a fundamental business risk that demands executive and board-level attention. As threats become ever more sophisticated and human error persists as a critical vulnerability, organisations must rethink...

Global buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant Klarna has formally relaunched the Laybuy brand in New Zealand after it ceased operations last year. Rebadged as Laybuy by Klara, users will be able to access the service via the Klarna app,...

Bankwest has introduced a new virtual card feature, giving its banking app users the option to make everyday payments without disclosing details of their physical debit or credit card. The ‘pay and vanish’ digital card enables customers to pay using...

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has taken the extraordinary step of deeming the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) to have failed in meeting its operational risk obligations. The RBA and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) have jointly written...

Despite their enormous information advantage, bigtech firms – including AWS, Meta and Google – have yet to make their long-anticipated move into the lucrative insurance space. However, Dr Doron Samuell, a Canberra-based academic, behavioural economist and former chief medical officer,...

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has opened a dedicated Tech Hub in Seattle, positioning the new facility as a “strategic gateway” to one of the US’s leading tech development centres. CBA said the newly unveiled Hub, opened last month,...

Global cyber intelligence-sharing consortium, the FS-ISAC, has released a new guide to help financial services firms chart the future evolution and potential risks of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies within their businesses. The paper provides an “all-hazards” approach to assessing...

ANZ and Westpac have separately announced a new account block feature, enabling customers to shut down use of their bank accounts if suspected misuse is identified.   Westpac’s ‘SafeBlock’ feature, accessible via the bank’s app and online banking portal, allows...

National Australia Bank (NAB) has revealed it has assisted with the removal of hundreds of illegitimate websites attempting to impersonate the bank or its products. These “realistic-looking but phoney websites” are typically used to trick bank customers into revealing their...

Credit card and digital payments juggernaut Visa has launched a new automated business-to-business (B2B) payments service in Australia, with the solution promising to “streamline and simplify” money transactions between businesses and suppliers. The Visa B2B Integrated Payments (VBIP) service, which...

Inadequate information-sharing between banks and complacency around current fraud detection systems are posing major challenges to New Zealand’s ability to tackle the growing money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) threat, a new report by the NZ Police service has revealed....

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has extended its partnership with Amazon-backed artificial intelligence (AI) research lab, Anthropic – best known for developing large language model ‘Claude’ – with the pair committing to levelling up the bank’s in-house AI capability....

Payments fintech Smartpay has confirmed it has received two separate non-binding buyout offers, including a bid from rival Australian paytech Tyro. Tyro’s indicative proposal would see it acquire a 100% stake in Smartpay, a rival cross-Tasman supplier of EFTPOS terminals....

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has announced it is suing FIIG Securities over alleged cybersecurity failures. The regulator has announced that it has taken action in the Federal Court alleging that FIIG failed to have adequate cybersecurity measures for...