St.George used to be Australia's fifth largest bank until it was acquired by Westpac Banking Corporation on December 1st 2008 for A$16 billion. Combined the two lenders now form the second largest banking group in Australia.
The friendly-looking dragon logo of St George is well known throughout Australia and the lender promotes itself as the friendlier and more customer service orientated bank in the country.
St.George was founded as a building society in 1937, in 1955 St.George merged with Bank SA and the lender achieved full banking status in 1992.
St.George operates as a national lender, with most of its operations focused in New South Wales, a business model which had propelled the lender to fifth largest in the country prior to being acquired by Westpac.
St.George was the first building society in Australia to go online when it installed an IBM mainframe connected to thirty terminals in 1972, since then the lender has gone on to provide a top notch online banking facility.
St George offers a comprehensive suite of business and retail banking services, including savings accounts, credit cards, personal loans, insurance products and wealth management.
St George is headquartered in Sydney and has a mortgage portfolio worth some A$85 billion.
Economists at Australian banking major ANZ are predicting that the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut the official cash rate to as low as 2 per cent by the end of next year, arguing that it may be more prudent for the government to back away from its budget surplus plans.
The economists are basing their prediction on the back of a weak Australian economy and modest gains in the global economic outlook.
The latest retail forecasts are projecting that Australians will spend approximately $32 billon over Christmas, with the average spend per person estimated to be $1200.
The forecast represents an increase over past years and is a major bonus for the retail industry which over the last few years has felt “more Grinch than Santa” according to Margy Osmand, the chief executive of the Australian National Retailers Association (ANRA)
The extremely detested surcharge that consumers are hit with when paying for a cab ride using a credit or debit card is unlikely to survive into the new year if the Australian central bank has its way.
The Reserve Bank has revised the rules regarding surcharges which are effective next year, tightening the language and making it explicit that the surcharge rules also apply to the taxi industry.
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