- Insurance intermediary Insured Group Limited outed itself on Friday as one borrower having trouble making repayments to its lender, Westpac. The Perth-based and NZX-listed firm was in the process of listing on the Australian Securities Exchange when ASIC placed a stop order on the prospectus late last week. Insured Group told the NZX that it owed Westpac's St George division A$3 million, which was payable by the end of September. The company said it "expects to pay a portion" of that amount by the due date. The company was seeking to sell A$2.25 million in new shares and, once listed on the ASX, delist from the NZX.
- ING Direct has ditched the gorilla in latest foray into television advertising, which debuted last night. The bank adopted a new tag line, "Spend your life well." The bank may be seeking to stem a decline in its retail deposit book, which fell for each of the last three months. ING's market share in the retail deposit segment is now 3.45 per cent, down from 5.2 per cent at the onset of the financial crisis.
- The Australian Securitisation Forum is pushing for regulatory support for a "master trust" structure to cater to securitisation of a wider range of receivables through a single legal entity. The Financial Review reported on planned talks between the ASF and Treasury officials this week
- APRA last week wrote to ADIs to remind them to correctly report loans that are overdue, including those being dealt with under "hardship" provisions. APRA reminded ADI's that while they may defer collections on overdue loans for operational reasons they must still report them as more than 90 days due or impaired.
- Westpac is the guarantor of a controversial new logging project covering 160,000 hactares on thousands of hectares of pristine rainforest on the island of Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands, the Canberra Times reported. Westpac has previously said that nine per cent of it loans to customers in the Solomon Islands relate to the logging industry, down from 35 per cent in 2009. A bank spokesperson told the newspaper: ''Our intention is to continue to reduce our lending to the forestry industry in the Solomon Islands. However … we are undertaking this reduction over time and in a socially responsible way."
- The International Finance Corporation has named Jin-yong Cai as its new chief executive. Cai, a Chinese national, is head of Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities. He has also worked for Morgan Stanley, China International Capital and the World Bank. IFC is the private financing arm of the World Bank.
