Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has found broad deficiencies in its management of anti-money laundering and terrorism financing, once again putting the spotlight on illegal activity in the banking sector.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has found broad deficiencies in its management of anti-money laundering and terrorism financing, once again putting the spotlight on illegal activity in the banking sector. B&A had asked Deloitte to investigate suspicious activity in one of its branches. The review ultimately identified “weaknesses and deficiencies across many key aspects” of the bank’s risk management program. The banks collectively have a track record of breaking anti-money launderings and terrorism rules. Over the past decade, Bank of Qld, NAB, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank have run afoul of AML and/or terror financing rules.
Federal Question Time yesterday was focused on energy costs with Coalition MP after Coalition MP using an example of a business from their electorates to ask when will power prices come down. Meanwhile federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned of a jump in inflation last month.
Domino’s franchisees are not happy with head office. The franchisees, which own more than 40 per cent of all Domino’s pizza stores across Australia, are demanding an immediate reduction in fees. Meanwhile, the consumer and competition watchdog is in the early stages of an investigation into the company.
Macquarie Group’s Shemara Wikramanayake has again topped the list of CEOs with the highest take-home pay, but she was only number five when it came to realised pay with bonuses and vesting options boosting the remuneration of some very rich bosses, particularly in the resources sector.
The first treasures have been recovered from what is believed to be the most valuable shipwreck in history – a Spanish galleon called the San Jose that sank in 1708 in the Caribbean Sea with a haul worth as much as 15 billion pounds.
Jakarta has become the world’s largest urban centre with a population of 42 million people, ahead of Dhaka in Bangladesh with 37 million and Tokyo with 33 million.
Fear-o-meter
I have sympathy for banks trying to counter anti-money laundering and terror financing in their businesses. Criminals are smart, and keeping up with their methods can’t be easy.
Kudos to Bendigo & Adelaide Bank for investigating suspicious activity at a single branch and then releasing the highly critical report from Deloitte about the bank’s systems.
While it might be hard to control, it shouldn’t happen.
Over the past decade, five of the six largest retail banks in the country – CBA, Westpac, NAB, Bank of Queensland and Bendigo & Adelaide have been caught up in anti-money laundering and/or terror financing laws.
For investors, it gives them another reason to sell down the banks. Westpac was flat yesterday while all the other banks were lower.
Commonwealth Bank is now down 20 per cent since its peak in the middle of the year. ANZ is off 11 per cent this month, NAB is off 10 per cent since its peak late last month and Westpac is the outperformer down 7pc since its peak.
Fear & Greed Q+A today
On McGrathNicol's 13th annual Working Capital Report, which reveals Aussie businesses have released an extra $8.2b in 'locked-up' cash:
"I'd give Australian companies a solid A this year. I think we've seen a trend in this. On average, Australian companies stack up well. They collect from their customers faster. They pay their suppliers faster. So that net customer-supplier cycle across most Australian businesses and definitely across the sample that we looked at is shorter when you compare it to US counterparts, the European and Asian counterparts. We manage that part of the cycle, or tend to manage that part of the cycle really well compared to international businesses.
I think where Australian companies still lag... is in inventory management. But a lot of that is sort of baked into the way Australian companies need to do business and need to manage their inventory load. They often have to carry more inventory than their international counterparts because they're further away from their suppliers and they're further away from their customers. So that vast geographical spread does play into some of the metrics which are hard to avoid. And the lower population density of Australia also plays into that as well."
As mentioned above, Jakarta is now the world's biggest city, home to 42 million people. Nine of the ten largest megacities in the world are all in Asia, with Cairo the only exception.
City
Population (millions)
1
Jakarta, Indonesia
42
2
Dhaka, Bangladesh
37
3
Tokyo, Japan
33
4
New Delhi, India
30
5
Shanghai, China
30
6
Guangzhou, China
28
7
Cairo, Egypt
26
8
Manila, Philippines
25
9
Kolkata, India
23
10
Seoul, South Korea
22
Source: UN, reported by ABC
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