Weekly Update: 13 March 2026

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Key News:

• ABA CEO Simon Birmingham joined NAB’s Ana Marinkovic and PwC’s Noel Williams for a discussion to mark International Women’s Day.

“What does balancing the scales look like in our banks. It’s a set of decisions we make when no one is watching – it’s actions over words. People learn from what we tolerate not what we say.”

–  NAB Group Executive, Ana Marinkovic. ABA’s International Women’s Day event, 12 March.

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Political Update:

• Following David Littleproud’s resignation, Matt Canavan was elected Leader of the Nationals, defeating Kevin Hogan and Bridget McKenzie.
  • Darren Chester was elected deputy leader, replacing Hogan. McKenzie will remain the party’s Senate leader.
• The Government introduced the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026.
• Independent MP Allegra Spender released a tax reform white paper, proposing to cut income tax for full time workers and fund this with higher levies on capital gains, trusts and the phasing out of negative gearing.

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Economic Update:

• Total value of credit outstanding for the purposes of housing has risen to an all-time high of $2.7 trillion.
• At the same time the value of mortgages with the mortgagee in possession ($262 million) is the lowest it has been since December 2023.
• Given the increasing total book alongside the value of mortgages in possession the proportion (0.0096%) is the lowest it has been on record (since March 2019).

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Regulatory Update

• The RBA released an update on the progress made against the recommendations into the proposed decommissioning of the Bulk Electronic Clearing System.
• Deputy Governor of the RBA Andrew Hauser appeared on The Conversation’s podcast with Michelle Grattan.
• Joe Longo gave a keynote address at the AICD Governance Summit on the duties of being a Director.
• APRA released the Quarterly Authorised Deposit-taking Institution statistics for December 2025.

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Coming up next week:

• Politics:
  • 16-17/3 – RBA Monetary Policy Board Meeting
• Data:
  • 19/3 – Labour Force
• 16/3 – AFR Banking Summit
  • ABA CEO Simon Birmingham is headlining the AFR Banking Summit, talking about the banking sector’s increasing competition from multi-national technology companies and what can be done to level the playing field. This will be accompanied by an opinion piece from Simon titled ‘Australian banks do the heavy lifting; our future prosperity relies on big tech pitching in too’.

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Upcoming Submissions

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Events

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Selected Media

• AFR – Treasury tips inflation to hit the ‘high 4s’
• The Australian – Households face imminent rate hikes as Reserve Bank confronts inflation shock
• AFR – NAB chairman joins calls for action on red tape
• AFR – CBA chairman warns AI risks ‘hollowing out’ Australia’s economy
• AFR – Caution urged on push to relax super fund borrowing ban

Warm regards,
The ABA Team

Weekly Update