K: Financial and Insurance Services

Floods to lift reinsurance costs: Youi

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Original article by Liam Walsh
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 17 : 29-Mar-21

The Insurance Council of Australia notes that more than 25,600 insurance claims arising from the recent floods in New South Wales and Queensland have been lodged to date. Youi CEO Hugo Schreuder says the insurer has already received about 1,000 claims, and he warns that the floods may result in higher reinsurance costs. This could in turn increase the insurance premiums of customers. Meanwhile, the ICA is concerned that so-called ‘disaster chasers’ could increase the final cost of the floods, by encouraging policyholders to make claims that were not directly linked to the floods.

CORPORATES
INSURANCE COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA LIMITED, YOUI PTY LTD

‘Never going back’: pandemic pushes more to digital wallets

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Original article by Finbar O’Mallon
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 3 : 8-Mar-21

Travis Tyler from neobank 86 400 suggests the pandemic has had a bigger impact on the future of banking than the banking royal commission. He notes hygiene concerns have prompted an increase in the number of people using digital wallets in preference to traditional wallets, with financial broker firm Savvy revealing almost 50 per cent of Australians have set up a digital wallet in the past year, while almost half of those people surveyed by Savvy prefer paying with their digital wallet. Marcus Crafter, a developer with digital bank Up, claims that Australians are "never going back to cash".

CORPORATES
86400 PTY LTD, SAVVY, UP, COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA – ASX CBA, NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK LIMITED – ASX NAB

Returns the world’s best over 121 years

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Original article by Cliona O’Dowd
The Australian – Page: 20 : 5-Mar-21

Data from Credit Suisse shows that the Australian sharemarket has outperformed other bourses over the long-term, with real annual returns of 6.6 per cent since 1900 in US dollar terms. The ASX’s annualised return over this period was 6.8 per cent in local currency terms, behind the 7.1 per cent return from the South African bourse. Looking ahead, Credit Suisse says Generation Z can expect annualised equity returns of about three per cent, compared with annualised returns of 7.1 per cent since 1950 for Baby Boomers.

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CREDIT SUISSE (AUSTRALIA) LIMITED

Smaller funds hit in super grab

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Original article by Lachlan Moffet Gray
The Australian – Page: 13 & 17 : 9-Feb-21

Data from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority shows that a total of $36.4bn was withdrawn from superannuation funds via the federal government’s early access scheme. This was well below the Treasury’s initial forecast of more than $42bn. Members of Australian­Super withdrew more than $5bn in total, although this accounts for just 2.5 per cent of the industry giant’s assets. In contrast, some $21.18m was withdrawn from the Grosvenor Pirie Master Superannuation Fund, which equates to 14 per cent of its asset base.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN PRUDENTIAL REGULATION AUTHORITY,AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE TREASURY,AUSTRALIANSUPER PTY LTD,GROSVENOR PIRIE MASTER SUPERANNUATION FUND

Dividends on way back up: Argo

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Original article by Cliona O’Dowd
The Australian – Page: 17 : 9-Feb-21

Argo Investments has posted a 2020-21 interim profit of 67m, which is 43 per cent lower than previously. The listed investment company’s half-year result was impacted by lower dividend income, with many companies scaling back their payouts in response to the COVID-pandemic. Argo MD Jason Beddow expects many companies to announce an increase in their dividend payouts during the February reporting season. However, he doubts that dividends will return to pre-coronavirus levels. He says banks and retailers are among the companies that could significantly boost their dividend payouts for the second half.

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ARGO INVESTMENTS LIMITED – ASX ARG

Under-insurance risk in super: Cbus

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Original article by Glenda Korporaal
The Australian – Page: 13 & 14 : 25-Jan-21

Cbus CEO executive Justin Arter has called for the government to exempt workers in high-risk jobs from the ‘stapling’ provisions of its proposed superannuation legislation. Under the legislation, a person’s superannuation fund would be the first fund that they signed up for. Arter notes that many of its members work in dangerous roles, but that 80 per cent are not first-time workers and would have super funds from their previous occupations; he is worried they risk being under-insured under the government’s proposals. He says Cbus offers superior insurance for people killed or injured while working, with Cbus insurance paying out $298 million in claims in 2019-20.

CORPORATES
CONSTRUCTION AND BUILDING UNIONS’ SUPERANNUATION FUND

Top-placed super funds defy virus chaos

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Original article by Cliona O’Dowd
The Australian – Page: 22 : 22-Jan-21

Suncorp’s Multi-Manager Growth Fund was Australia’s best-performed superannuation fund in 2020, according to research house SuperRatings, returning 9.6 per cent. It was followed by Australian Ethical’s balanced option, which returned eight per cent, and Vision SS’s balanced option, which returned 6.2 per cent. The median return for super funds in 2020 was 3.3 per cent, while the S&P/ASX 200 index fell by 1.45 per cent over the same period.

CORPORATES
SUNCORP GROUP LIMITED – ASX SUN, SUPERRATINGS PTY LTD, AUSTRALIAN ETHICAL SUPERANNUATION PTY LTD, VISION SUPER PTY LTD

Rise in failures a pointer to future

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Original article by Patrick Commins
The Australian – Page: 17 : 15-Jan-21

Michael Fung of PwC and Sal Algeri from Deloitte expect the rate of business failures in Australia to be higher than usual in 2021. The federal government has wound back some of the COVID-19 support measures that helped businesses to stay afloat during the virus-induced economic downturn, while the JobKeeper scheme is slated to be phased out in March. Data from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission supports the view that a rise in insolvencies is likely; an average of 60 companies were placed in external administration in the final two weeks of 2020, compared with 13 during the same period in 2019.

CORPORATES
PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS AUSTRALIA (INTERNATIONAL) PTY LTD, DELOITTE TOUCHE TOHMATSU LIMITED, AUSTRALIAN SECURITIES AND INVESTMENTS COMMISSION

Data risk alert in NZ reserve bank file hack

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Original article by Cliona O’Dowd, David Swan
The Australian – Page: 14 : 12-Jan-21

Reserve Bank of New Zealand governor Adrian Orr says the central bank is treating a data breach as a top priority, and the National Cyber Security Centre has been informed of the incident. Orr says the hackers had targeted Accellion rather than the RBNZ’s own computer systems; Accellion provides a third-party file-sharing service which the central bank uses to share and store sensitive information. Spotless is among the Australian companies that were targeted by hackers in 2020, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned in June of a rise in cyber attacks in both the public and private sectors.

CORPORATES
RESERVE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND, ACCELLION INCORPORATED, SPOTLESS GROUP HOLDINGS LIMITED, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET

Investment bankers brace for deal blitz

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Original article by Tim Boyd
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 6 : 11-Jan-21

Australian investment bankers are upbeat about the outlook for mergers and acquisitions activity in 2021. John Pickhaver of Macquarie Capital says local companies are likely to attract interest from foreign suitors, given Australia’s comparative success in combating COVID-19. James Disney of Credit Suisse expects private equity firms to actively pursue acquisitions in 2021. There was a spike in M&A activity in the fourth quarter of 2020, although data from Dealogic shows that the value of announced deals for the full year reached a 10-year low of $US63.2bn ($81.4bn).

CORPORATES
MACQUARIE CAPITAL PTY LTD, CREDIT SUISSE (AUSTRALIA) LIMITED, DEALOGIC (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD