The Financial Planning Association (FPA) has moved to defend members after former Federal Treasurer Peter Costello suggested financial planners are to blame for superannuation investment losses. In an interview in The Australian, Mr Costello said people who believe they were pushed into large superannuation investments after his Government removed tax on benefits for those over [...]

Tower Australia Group has bought direct life provider InsuranceLine Holdings for $136 million, three years after buying an initial 15% stake in the company. The deal is intended to cash in on growing demand for direct life insurance products within a market that is projected to treble to $19 billion by 2017. The $136 million [...]

The US financial crisis and resultant slide in the Australian stock market has seen local insurance shares emerge as diamonds in the rough. Credit Suisse analyst Arjan van Veen told insuranceNEWS.com.au insurers with substantial retail exposure are particularly likely to feature on investor watchlists. “In order of preference I would put IAG, Suncorp, and then [...]

KEVIN RUDD steeled Australians for the effects of the global financial meltdown but said the Government was working to “maintain positive growth”. “Some of the options could be bringing forward major infrastructure projects or one-off measures to help small business set to suffer,” the Prime Minister said yesterday. Investors will nervously watch the opening of [...]

Australian stocks are expected to open flat on Monday as Wall street closed the week modestly lower following its horror session on Thursday. AMP Investments chief economist Shane Oliver said the federal government’s announcement that it would guarantee all money deposits for the next three years would have little impact on Monday’s market. “Whether it [...]

THE Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan has warned that the economic crisis is flowing through to developing economies much faster and more brutally than expected – including Australia’s major trading partners. Mr Swan emerged from a weekend meeting in Washington of the G20, a group that includes developed and developing nations, saying he was now more [...]

THE Australian dollar has opened firmer after the federal government’s guarantee to cover all bank deposits for three years lifted investor confidence about the country’s banks. At 0700 AEDT, the Australian dollar was trading at $US0.6674/82, up from Friday’s close of $US0.6591/99. During the weekend offshore session, the local currency traded between a high of [...]

Resource analysts say they’re not surprised Chinese steel makers have asked for slowdowns in iron ore deliveries. Several manufacturers have asked Mount Gibson Iron, Australia’s fourth largest ore producer, to delay shipments next year, as the industry slows down in the face of the global financial uncertainty. Resource analyst Mark Nuitta says, while Mount Gibson [...]

THE Australian stock market continued its freefall today, tumbling more than 8 per cent by early this afternoon. Just after 3pm , the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was down 344 points to 3976, while the broader All Ordinaries had fallen 341 points to 3948. More than $70 billion has been wiped off the value of All Ordinaries [...]

ABOUT 800,000 Australian households and up to 2 million small and medium-sized enterprises are living on a knife-edge and could go under in the face of high costs of debt, the latest mortgage report compiled by JPMorgan and Fujitsu warned yesterday. More than 800,000 households are experiencing some form of mortgage stress — five times [...]