Financial Services News

The Bank of Queensland (BoQ) has announced that current Executive Chair Patrick Allaway will stay on to serve as managing director and chief executive for the next two years. Allaway was appointed Executive Chair last December following the departure of...

Latitude Financial has revealed that upwards of 14 million customer records have been lost – 42 times higher than its initial estimate – including around 7.9 million individual Australian and New Zealand licence details, following a malicious breach of records-holding...

American Express (Amex) has unveiled a new, near-instant credit card repayment capability, leveraging the New Payments Platform’s (NPP’s) PayID function. Co-developed with Aussie payments provider Cuscal, the new ‘American Express Card PayID’ service enables Amex cardholders to pay off their...

Latitude has moved to isolate key technology systems and has temporarily ceased onboarding new customers following a major hack, disclosed last Thursday, of systems containing its customers’ personally identifiable data. “Because the attack remains active, we have taken our platforms...

The global financial services sector’s dedicated cyber intelligence-sharing network, FS-ISAC, has announced a major new addition to its Critical Providers Program (CPP) – Google Cloud. Acknowledging the increasing role of cloud providers in hosting, connecting, and protecting financial services organisations’...

Australia’s High Value Clearing System (HVCS) has successfully adopted ISO 20022 – the latest international financial transaction messaging standard – after a four-year migration program led by payments regulator and lead coordinator, AusPayNet. ISO 20022 promises to “carry richer, more...

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has announced the creation of a standalone technology division to be headed by a new, as-yet-unannounced, chief information officer (CIO). Spun off from the ASX’s current Group Executive, Technology and Data and CIO function, the...

AUSTRAC has accepted an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) from PayPal’s Australian arm, with the financial crimes investigations agency to confirm whether the online payments provider is now compliant with local Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) laws. The issuing of the...

Latitude Financial has reportedly been hit by a “sophisticated and malicious” cyber-attack, with upwards of 103,000 identification documents – more than 97 per cent of which are copies of drivers’ licences – believed to have been stolen by hackers. While...

The appetite for cost-efficient fintechs and neobanks appears to be growing, with a new report revealing that more than two out of three customers would switch to a specialist fintech from a bank if they were offered lower fees and...

HBF’s full-scale, whole-of-business transformation program will be given a late-stage boost through the adoption of a ‘dark launch’ capability, enabling the health insurer’s tech team to safely launch new digital assets in a production environment without the “stress of customers...

Global financial crime and AML/CTF watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has released a list of 29 indicators to help identify customers who are victims or perpetrators of ransomware attacks, as part of a wider report into the global...

National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced it has achieved a world-first intra-bank, cross-border transfer of a stablecoin, delivered on the “public and permissionless Ethereum blockchain” – a decentralised, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. It is the first time a...

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA’s) Indonesian subsidiary, PT Bank Commonwealth (PTBC), has reportedly been the target of a cyber-attack. CBA reported the breach to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) just after midday today, stating it was the result of...

New Zealand-headquartered fintech Xero has announced it will cut between 700-800 jobs across its business, with newly appointed chief executive Sukhinder Singh Cassidy announcing the company’s new operational “streamlining” and cost-efficiency drive this morning. Xero said the headcount reductions would...