Latest news and insights on banking and finance in Australia and New Zealand, as delivered in the daily 7am Banking Day email news service (subscribe or take out a free trial).
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LM New Zealand arm sold
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02 April 2004 12:00amLeigh-Mardon sold its New Zealand subsidiary in a management buy out at the start of last month, to a syndicate financed by Clavell Capital and other investors. The new owners quickly shut LM NZ's Wellington factory and focussed production in Auckland. » read more »
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Clarification: RBNZ currency intervention
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02 April 2004 12:00amThe Reserve Bank of New Zealand advise that some aspects of the report here on Wednesday in respect to the central bank's new option to raise finance for FX intervention purposes were wrong. » read more »
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Key Walter claims unanswered by NAB's probity advisers
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02 April 2004 12:00amOn Monday, this journal reported what it regarded as the 11 juiciest assertions by National Australia Bank director Catherine Walter in the now famous series of memos and letters from herself to NAB chair Graham Kraehe over the first few weeks of March 2004; and all in the context of the $360 million foreign exchange options losses. » read more »
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Arab Bank curtails growth ambitions
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01 April 2004 12:00amThe local subsidiary of Arab Bank opted to take a bit of a breather in the closely related consumer and commercial loan market, with a decision to maintain the yield on the loan portfolio, as well as to reduce the exposure to single name borrowers (which this journal guesses were largely property developers and builders). » read more »
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ING on the march
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01 April 2004 12:00amThe much larger ING Bank Australia, by contrast, continues to pursue rapid growth, though at no obvious cost to profit. This journal's already reported ING Bank's local earnings, in euros, from the ING group accounts for the year to December 2003. Now the local banking subsidiary has released its full financial statements for 2003, eight weeks after the directors signed them off. That's bank disclosure to depositors for you. In any event, in Australian dollars this time: » read more »
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Business credit growth in reverse, housing stable
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01 April 2004 12:00amThe credit bubble in housing might be past its late 2003 peak, but the dip seems to be little more than a retreat to the frenetic growth rate that characterised the market over much of the 2001 to 2004 period. » read more »
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ANZ turns to franchise specialists
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01 April 2004 12:00amANZ Bank's Mortgage Solutions franchising system has hired in Steven Heavey formerly manager of lender partnerships at Mortgage Choice and Carmel Dal Ponte formerly at Rams Home Loans to run the new business. The pair's task to is to develop a nationally franchised business that would sell ANZ branded home loan products only. » read more »
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Rams relies on self employed clients
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01 April 2004 12:00amRams Home Loans customer appears to be is relying increasingly on self-employed borrowers, and as a result almost two thirds of its new business is low documentation loans. » read more »
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Credit unions attract better low doc borrowers
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01 April 2004 12:00amLow doc lending by credit unions is attracting a class of customer seeking to borrow well above the average loan size. » read more »
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NAB auditor faces fresh SEC scrutiny
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01 April 2004 12:00am
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Virgin Money profit flat
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01 April 2004 12:00amVirgin Money recorded an operating profit in the year to December 2003 of about £4 million, the annual report for 50 per cent shareholder HHG plc shows. The operating profit is unchanged from 2002. » read more »
