Financial Services News

Australia’s big four banks – ANZ, CBA, NAB, and Westpac – remain, almost certainly, exposed to the majority of money laundering risk facing the country’s banking sector, “given the size of their customer base, scale of operations, cash transaction infrastructure...

The ACCC-led National Anti-Scam Centre has cautioned previous victims of financial scams to be on the lookout for scammers promising to help recover lost funds. The National Anti-Scam Centre recorded a 129 per cent increase in the number of reported...

TAL has confirmed a new strategic agreement with Microsoft that will see wide-scale adoption of the software giant’s generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) solution, Copilot, and a “supercharging” of the life insurer’s internal engineering capability over the next three years. The...

Fewer than one per cent of banking customers are making use of Australia’s B2B data sharing scheme, the Consumer Data Right (CDR), with already “early signs of decelerating growth” as innovation and new use cases stagnate, a new report commissioned...

Long-serving chief executive and managing director of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Marnie Baker, will step down at the end of August making way for an internal successor, the bank has announced. Richard Fennell, Bendigo’s current chief customer officer (CCO) for...

Dual ASX- and NZX-listed Heartland Bank, New Zealand’s first bank to acquire an Australian banking licence, has announced the creation of a new chief technology and operations officer role. Vaughan Dixon, who joins Heartland from Australian non-bank lender and buy...

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has become the second big four bank within a week to be formally sanctioned by the Banking Code Compliance Committee (BCCC). The Committee alleges that ANZ Bank breached its Banking Code obligations by...

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has announced the completion of Phase 3 of its proposed cross-border fast payments network – Project Nexus – successfully laying out a comprehensive blueprint to prepare global participants to connect their domestic instant payment...

AIA Australia has delivered a major update to its Member Insurance Portal, promising for users a “cutting-edge” and “real-time” claims experience. Through the new portal, AIA members and third-party claimants will now receive real-time status updates on the progress of...

ANZ is a step closer to its proposed $4.9b takeover of tier-two rival Suncorp Bank, with Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers today approving the acquisition. Today’s sign-off by Treasurer Chalmers comes nearly two years after ANZ’s initial bid to buy out...

Instances of unique malware emerging worldwide have surged by 40 per cent since the end of 2023, figures from Blackberry’s latest cyber threat intelligence report reveal. Covering the three months to March 2024 period (Q1), the cybersecurity vendor’s report observed...

Digital or app-based payments are preferred by a significant majority of remittance payers in Australia, according to a new report by credit card and payments giant Visa. More than two-thirds (67 per cent) of Australians now use digital apps to...

A new report has detailed a litany of vulnerabilities within Android devices that are enabling financial scammers to circumvent traditional bank and app store controls. The Digital Banking Fraud Trends in APAC report, authored by cybersecurity vendor and behavioural biometrics...

The Banking Code Compliance Committee (BCCC) has sanctioned Westpac for its alleged mishandling of a regional branch closure in 2022. The BCCC, which monitors Australian banks’ compliance with the 2019 Banking Code of Practice, contends that the big four bank...

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has released new guidance urging market intermediaries, including investment banks and securities dealers, to keep a closer eye on unmonitored and unapproved communication channels and encrypted communication apps being used by the representatives...