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- Finance Hints & Tips
- Australian Banks Continue To Battle For Deposits By Offering High Introductory Rates
Australia’s largest banks are using high introductory online savings rates to attract retail deposits and expand their deposit bases. Despite the high introductory rates, the lenders later aggressively cut back their deposit rates in order to preserve their profit margins.
The investment bank Macquarie conducted an analysis of the online savings market which found that the big four Australian lenders, as well as some international rivals were offering introductory rates that were as much as 200 basis points higher than the 4.5 per cent official cash rate.
- QBE Denies Chief Executive To Step Down
Australian insurance major QBE has moved to end speculation that its chief executive is poised to step down. QBE chief Frank O'Halloran has run the company for the last twelve years, and the insurer says that he would continue in that role "for the foreseeable future".
Rumours of Mr. O’Halloran’s departure ricocheted around the insurance industry this week, when speculation began to emerge that Mr. O’Halloran would hand over the reigns of the company to Peter Harmer, a senior executive at insurance broker AON.
- Research Firm Says ANZ Offers Best Value For Small Business
Australian banking major ANZ, has been named by a financial research firm as the lender which provided the best value banking service for small business. Despite the accolade, ANZ has not managed to convince all the decision makers in the business sector, and still lags behind rivals.
Canstar in issuing the award said certain product features that matter a great deal to small business provided by ANZ including credit facilities and loans.
But this has yet to translate into higher customer satisfaction levels with the bank.
- JP Morgan To Cease Proprietary Trading
Global banking giant JP Morgan has apparently decided to close down its proprietary trading operations, sources from within the bank say. According to an unnamed source quoted by Dow Jones, JP Morgan has issued notice to approximately 20 proprietary traders that trade commodities.
JP Morgan has never had a huge focus on proprietary trading, and it’s prop trading desks have tended to be small. Nevertheless those desks have been affected by regulatory reform and in particular the Volcker Rule, which forbids banks from proprietary trading, proprietary investments in hedge funds and private equity.
- Australians Believe Not Enough Competition In Banking
A survey undertaken by Australian wealth manager AMP suggests that nearly 78 per cent of all Australians believe that acquisitions by banks should be restricted.It is no coincidence that the survey results were released on the eve of the ruling by the competition regulator on National Australia Bank’s proposed acquisition of Axa Asia Pacific Holdings.
According to the AMP survey, an overwhelming majority of 71 per cent of people polled say they believe that there needs to be increased competition within the Australian financial services sector.
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- RACQ Warns Australian Motorists To Watch The Price Of Petrol
"Cheap Tuesday" used to be the best day to fill the petrol tank, however that is now slowly changing with "savings Sunday" becoming the prime day to fill up the fuel tank.
For many years, Tuesday was the best day to top up one’s fuel tank, as a result of a fuel cycle set by companies. However the oil companies in a bid to maintain revenues began varying which day was the cheapest to obtain fuel, as they sought to keep consumers off balance.
- Five Tips For Borrowing Using A Personal Loan
Personal loans can be amongst the cheapest way to borrow, but we can’t help but stress how important what the reason you are borrowing the money for.
If you are looking to finance a new flat screen television or go on holiday, or any other luxury, a personal loan is not your best option. Fortunately the financial crisis has made most people more aware of their finances and changed the way they think about borrowing.
- Six Debt Myths Busted
Trying to pay off debt that has piled up can make borrowers feel very scared and vulnerable. Often those who find themselves struggling to pay off a mountain of debt end up fearful over what the future may hold, don’t know whom to turn to or what to do.That kind of insecurity is usually a result of inability to decide what to do and what the consequence of a particular course of action are.
Many people confuse fact with fiction when trying to decide how to solve their problems so in this post, we try separate truth from fiction.
- Nine Credit Card Pitfalls
No matter how responsible you are when it comes to credit cards, they still come with a number of pitfalls. As soon as you navigate your way past one, yet another emerges. Here are 9 credit card pitfalls.
The Debt That Never Ends. The minimum payment on many credit cards barely meet the interest being incurred on your debt, which means if you only ever make the minimum, you’re debt will never reduce and seem to be endless. Occasionally a card will be offered with such a low minimum monthly payment, that your debt ends up actually growing.
- Nine More Credit Card Pitfalls
In the first part of this series we looked at nine credit card pitfalls. As we said previously, even for the most responsible users credit cards represent a minefield so here are nine more pitfalls you should be aware of.
Insurance offers that credit cards tend to present are horribly over-priced. You should avoid signing up to these and instead look on the internet for a better deal.
- Three Ways To Save A Bit Of Cash In A Low Interest Rate Environment
With governments globally raising income tax rates globally in their response to fiscal deficits run up during their attempt to deal with the financial crisis, it is becoming increasingly difficult to save.
In Australia, fortunately the government so far has yet to raise tax rates, the top marginal tax rate is the same as it was last year however it is still at a hefty 45 per cent.
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