A survey conducted by Citibank has found that one-third Australians use their credit cards for large purchases even though 55 per cent think that personal [...]

The ANZ Bank has launched its new internet based business banking platform which includes two-factor authentication for improved security. The service will cost $15 per [...]

Business confidence fell again in April and is now at its lowest level since 2001. The monthly NAB survey recorded a 4 point fall and [...]

Westpac’s proposed takeover of St George could result in thousands of lost jobs and lower levels of customer service according to the Financial Sector Union. [...]

If the takeover by Westpac of St George goes ahead, the new entity will be Australia’s largest bank with over 37,000 staff, more than 1,200 [...]

The Reserve Bank’s series of rate rises are slowing the economy, with the latest evidence a sharp fall in home loan approvals. The number of home [...]

Westpac recently stole St George Bank’s CEO Gail Kelly, but not content to stop there, is in talks to buy the bank. If the takeover [...]

Members Equity Bank has raised up to $5 billion from its shareholders which chief executive Anthony Wamsteker says should be enough to fund mortgage growth [...]

Evidence of a slump in the property market is building with auction clearance rates falling and sharp drops in house values being seen in some [...]

Voters have come out in support of plans by the federal government to apply means testing to government hand-outs. A Newspoll has found that 65 [...]

Economists, accountants and bankers are urging the federal government to introduce a tax-free savings account, although Treasurer Wayne Swan has said that there will be [...]

Australian banks are in good shape, despite pressures from the global credit crunch. A review of their half-year financial reports by KPMG has found that [...]

A traveller’s cheque is a fixed amount cheque that can be purchased in a variety of amounts and currencies. The cheques are usually signed by [...]

A cash passport is a prepaid card designed for use when travelling. The card can be loaded with a range of currencies so that you [...]

Is the quoted fare for a one-way or return flight? Many of the low fares on offer are one-way tickets only. Be sure you are [...]

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY The general consensus in the marketplace is that when travelling overseas you should take a combination of cash, cards and travellers cheques [...]

Live now, pay later may sound a great maxim, but it’s not one that should be applied to travel and holidays. If you can avoid paying [...]

Trying to maximise foreign exchange rates can prove a lot of hard work for very little outcome - unless you are dealing in hundreds of [...]

Travelling is normally great fun, but it can really knock a hole in your finances, particularly if you have chosen expensive destinations. Order a round [...]

Whatever your age, fitness level or destination, taking out the right insurance before you travel is an absolute necessity. It really doesn’t matter how careful [...]

Passports While all new Australian passports now contain microchips that enable the bearer’s identity to be electronically confirmed in some ports, a passport is still [...]

Travelling, for most people, is one of great pleasures of life. Well, at least it can be if all goes smoothly. However, travelling throws up [...]

Before you go   A good way to lessen or avoid certain travel problems that can occur on the road, is good preparation before you [...]

Of the major banks National Australia Bank has moved first to announce increased variable rates for its mortgage products. The bank has taken the opportunity to [...]

Macquarie has decided to significantly scale down its mortgage business in response to the increasing cost of credit. The banks says that it will continue [...]

Following the Reserve Bank's increase in the official cash rate of 25 basis points this week, BankWest has moved quickly to pass on the benefit [...]

Many borrowers believe that small non-bank lenders are more vulnerable to higher funding costs than banks according to the mortgage broking arm of Rain & [...]

The Reserve Bank has today increased the official cash rate by 0.25 percentage points, citing the need to contain and reduce inflation over the medium [...]

AMP has warned of more difficult times ahead as it reported a profit result that was below market expectations. The company increased its net profit [...]

The Australian Securities Exchange is referring an increased number of insider trading allegations to ASIC with six breaches referred in January alone, compared with the [...]

Analysts have warned that while a second rate rise this year will be hard on many who live in outer suburbs, a third will slow [...]

The do-it-yourself superannuation sector is to face tougher regulations aimed at improving the governance applied to the $313 billion sector. The Minister for Superannuation and [...]

The future of troubled broking firm Tricom is in doubt as it has been forced to seek a buyer. With some of the company’s largest [...]

An unexpected fall in unemployment has increased the risk of wage increases which would further fuel inflation. The chances of further rate rises by the [...]

BankWest has lifted the 12 month introductory rate on their Telenet Saver Account 0.30 per cent (0.05 per cent more than the RBA increase) to [...]

The Reserve Bank of Australia has cited recent data that indicates continued inflationary pressures when announcing its decision to increase interest rates today. The official [...]

While it is too early to be sure about where the property market is heading this year, the first major weekend of auctions has been [...]

With the Reserve Bank of Australia expected to increase interest rates again tomorrow, borrowers who bought property when prices peaked in 2003 will be paying [...]

Figures from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority show that banks are winning market share from non-bank lenders. Over the last three months of the year [...]

The call from the ASX for closer regulation of the margin lending industry has received a lukewarm response from the industry. While the proposal has [...]

A new report has warned investors to be prepared for an increased level of company profit warnings over the next six months. The Ernst and [...]

Embattled broker Tricom Equities is busily reducing the size of its loan book and has seen broking revenues dive. Managing director Lance Rosenberg said that [...]

The largest wealth manager in the world, UBS, has warned that it will post a record loss for 2007. After saying in December that it [...]

The number of skilled vacancies eased in January, possibly indicating slower growth in employment. The latest figures from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace [...]

Analysts are predicting that rents in some capital cities could rise by as much as 24 per cent over the next two years due to [...]

The International Monetary Fund has lowered its forecast for world economic growth over the coming year from 4.9 per cent to 4.1 per cent. While [...]

The broker and margin lender Tricom will be under daily supervision by the ASX after failing to settle trades on Tuesday. While the firm did [...]

With interest rates low, savers looking for decent returns in an at-call deposit account will do well to look to the internet. An increasing number [...]

When looking for higher interest returns than on a normal passbook account, consider online savings accounts, cash management account (CMAs) and cash management trusts (CMTs), [...]

The Reserve Bank has expressed its disappointment that changes designed to make ATM fees more transparent may not be introduced until March 2009. Originally expected [...]

The amount of money borrowed so that it could be invested in shares through margin loans went down in September for the first time since [...]

The global credit crunch has further to run as more losses are expected in the US sub-prime sector and liquidity dries up. A report by [...]

The chief of Treasury, Ken Henry, flew to Brisbane yesterday to meet with the incoming federal treasurer, Wayne Swan. Economists believe that Dr Henry will [...]

The property industry is pleased that the new Labor government has a strong focus on housing affordability but is concerned that its IR policies could [...]

Total assets of Australian securitisers have fallen for the first time in 12 years. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that total securitised [...]

The incoming Labor government is expected to launch a Wallis-style inquiry into the financial sector. Senator Nick Sherry has been Labor's spokesman on financial services [...]

ING has reacted swiftly to the Reserve Bank's 0.25 per cent increase in the cash rate today by announcing that it will pass on the [...]

BankWest has passed on the Reserve Bank's cash rate increase to its deposit customers by increasing the TeleNet Saver's 12 month variable introductory rate from [...]

Generation Y, broadly defined as those aged between 20 and 30, are being squeezed out of the property market by a combination of their own [...]

St George Bank has announced an after tax profit of $1.16 billion for the year to the end of September, 13.1 per cent higher than [...]

Analysis conducted by InfoChoice shows that Australian mortgage borrowers have seen their home loan interest bill rise by more than 37 per cent over the [...]

An early termination fee may be charged by a lender if you refinance or otherwise payout your loan within a specified period, usually limited to [...]

With the September quarter Consumer Price Index rising by 0.7 per cent, and the underlying rate of inflation running at 1 per cent, a rate [...]

Friday was the 20th anniversary of the 1987 sharemarket crash and Wall Street was hit with the biggest losses in 2 months, prompting concerns that [...]

The Australian economy has entered an inflation danger zone according to forecaster Access Economics. An Access report has said that our balance of trade will [...]

Economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel says that the undersupply of housing will rise by around 8.4 per cent over the current financial year, after increasing by [...]

Online broker CommSec has posted a profit of $151.5 million for the year to June 2007, an increase of 50 per cent over the previous [...]

Merrill Lynch has forecast a 14 per cent increase in earnings growth per share for the nation's largest banks despite concerns that their results for [...]

The battle of the tax cuts is heating up with Labor announcing its policy on Friday followed by the Treasurer, Peter Costello, responding with additions [...]

As was widely tipped, the Reserve Bank of Australia has decided to leave the official cash rate unchanged at 6.50% at its October meeting. [...]

The RAMS mystery buyer has been revealed as Westpac, however the bank is only purchasing the non-bank lender's franchise distribution business and not ASX listed [...]

St George Bank has announced that it will partner with BP to install 200 of the bank's ATMs in prominent BP service stations across Australia. [...]

As homes in America become harder to sell with buyers drying up and credit becoming scarce, some desperate sellers are seeking divine intervention. St Joseph [...]

Australia's total credit card debt topped $41 billion for the first time at the end of July, an increase of $256 million from the previous [...]

The Prime Minister, John Howard, has said that there is no housing crisis. Mr Howard said that while there are the beginnings of a housing [...]

The federal government has called for ATM's to be removed from all venues where there are poker machines. Treasurer Peter Costello said that restricting the [...]

New home sales across the country were down by 8.6 per cent in August according to the Housing Industry Association. With the August rate rise [...]

The global credit crunch is forcing some lenders to increase their interest rates. The latest rate movements include the Commonwealth Bank which has lifted its [...]

Payday lenders can charge an effective annual rate of over 1000 per cent. Not all states have caps on the interest rates that can be [...]

The ongoing shakeout of global credit markets means that Australian borrowers are less likely to face another 0.25 per cent rise in their home loans [...]

The ongoing shakeout of global credit markets means that Australian borrowers are less likely to face another 0.25 per cent rise in their home loans [...]

Concerns about the global financial markets and the rate rise earlier this month have had little impact on clearance rates at auctions. The rate was [...]

Allco Finance Group has issued two statements to the stock exchange in the past month about its subsidiary Mobius Financial Services, reassuring investors that it [...]

Although RAMS has no direct link to the subprime sector the company revealed last week that pricing pressure from international credit markets would affect its [...]

Do-it-yourself funds are expected to become the dominant type of superannuation with $1.46 trillion of a total pool of $4.1 trillion by 2021. Projections by [...]

In response to rate rise warnings from lenders Liberty and Bluestone, the Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has said that there should be no need for [...]

For the past year Westpac has been evaluating technology that will allow people to authorise transactions with their mobile phones. The service uses the mobile [...]

Non-bank lender RAMS remains tangled in the global financial problems with its stock losing 36 per cent yesterday to close at 85.5 cents, after being [...]

As prices for blue-chip stocks fall more investors who use margin loans to fund share purchases are receiving margin calls. A margin call is made [...]

The Australian Tax Office has turned its sights onto investors and will scrutinise the purchase of investment properties and shares over the last year in [...]

After a year-long search Westpac has announced that St George's Gail Kelly will replace outgoing chief executive David Morgan. The move will be the first [...]

Non-bank lenders have reported an increase in enquiries about switching to fixed rates from home loan customers concerned about the fall-out from the US debt [...]

While the total amount owing on credit cards in June was up $508 million from the month before, the rate of growth is slowing. The [...]

The chance of another rate rise in the next six months remains well and truly on the cards, but hardly a forgone conclusion, following testimony [...]

The chance of another rate rise in the next six months remains well and truly on the cards, but hardly a forgone conclusion, following testimony [...]

Aussie Home Loans chairman John Symond believes that all lenders, including banks, will have to raise interest rates by more than last week's 25 basis [...]

A committee consisting of representatives from Visa, MasterCard, merchants, card issuers and card acquirers has been established by The Australian Payments Clearing Association, with a [...]

Demonstrating the competitiveness of the Online Savings market, ING Direct has also announced an increase in deposit rates for their Savings Maximiser from 6 to [...]

Borrowers are bracing for an increase in official interest rates next month as the rate of underlying inflation jumped to 2.75 per cent, a sharp [...]

Sydney-based hedge fund Absolute Capital has closed withdrawals on a $200 million fund to protect its business as market liquidity in the US sub-prime credit [...]