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“While inflation is still unacceptably high, we welcome that some price pressures have started to ease. The drivers of the moderation in inflation were lower fuel prices from previous war‑driven highs, easing vegetable prices from the floods and easing growth in the cost of new dwellings”

“Today’s bank robbers are not tunnelling underground; they are at ergonomic desks with profit share spreadsheets, hedging risk and buying crypto with the stolen proceeds. Even worse, some criminals deploy a slave-like workforce to trick customers to hand over their savings.”

This week the ABA launched a major campaign to raise awareness of a series of scam scenarios and provide customers with tools to beat the scammers. With the tag line ‘hear the alarm bells’, the campaign highlights the importance of customer vigilance against this criminal activity.

“You haven’t been able to use a credit card to gamble in the physical world for more than two decades. It is in the online gambling world that unfortunately credit cards are still allowed to be used. The ABA’s view, and the one we put to this inquiry, is….”

“Today is an historic day for the country to ensure our economy can take advantage of the opportunities of decarbonisation and meet our ambitious climate targets”

“Dedicated customer support teams stand ready and are in fact proactively communicating with customers at risk of financial difficulty. This network of help is a highly structured, organised and experienced support system.”

“What is underpinning this bank failure is a number of things, but not least of all, it’s a very niche bank with high exposure to one part of the economy. And that’s the part of the economy that’s been quite volatile and troubled… remember that [in Australia] we have some of the best capitalised banks in the world”

The ABA held an International Women’s Day panel event on Wednesday in Sydney, examining emerging challenges in the post-pandemic workplace and ways leaders can ensure they are effectively advancing equity.

“I think most Australians would be quite surprised that there are 17 Australians who have over $100m in their superannuation accounts, and one has over $400m. That means that for 99.5 per cent of superannuants this will have no impact on them whatsoever”
– Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister

“The consultation paper that we’re releasing today sets out our proposed definition of the objective to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support, in an equitable and sustainable way”

ABA CEO Anna Bligh spoke with Westpac Group CEO Peter King at the Trans-Tasman Business Circle Economic Forecast 2023 in Sydney today. Peter told the audience that Westpac is there to support customers who face financial difficulty in a constrained economic environment but noted there is no ‘mortgage cliff’.

“Inflation is still unacceptably high, and it will stay higher than we want it to for longer than we want it to. But there is growing evidence that inflation is now around its peak and will begin to moderate in 2023.”