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Seventeen banks – including the big four – have signed up to a “near real-time reporting” system that is designed to reduce scam activity. The Fraud Reporting Exchange (FRX) will give the participating banks a way to quickly communicate with each other as fraudulent payments are transferred from one institution to another. That is expected … Read more
HECS-HELP student debt will rise by 7.1% on June 1, in line with the latest inflation rate. That reflects the recent surge in inflation – the increase was only 3.9% in 2022 and 0.6% in 2021. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has advised people to move fast if they want to reduce their loan balances … Read more
The Reserve Bank of Australia has rounded out 2023 with the decision to hold the nation’s cash rate at 4.35%. 2023 hasn’t been an easy year for homeowners or ambitious first-home buyers. The cash rate increased from 3.10% to 4.35% over the course of eleven months in the RBA’s bid to bring inflation back within … Read more
You may have heard the Federal Government last night handed down its 2023/24 Federal Budget. Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Budget included a number of measures aimed at easing the cost-of-living pressures and improving housing affordability. The challenge the Treasurer faced was to ease pressure many Australians are facing in covering increasing costs without adding to … Read more
From 1 July, two entitlements – Parental Leave Pay and Dad and Partner Pay – will be combined into one payment. That means the current entitlement to 18 weeks’ paid parental leave pay will be combined with the current Dad and Partner Pay entitlement to two weeks’ pay. As a result, partnered couples will be … Read more
The business sector has a stronger balance sheet than before the pandemic, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) latest Financial Stability Review. That finding was based on a study of non-financial businesses’ balance sheets over the three years to June 2022, the most recent period for which the RBA had data. “Aggregate leverage … Read more
Just as employers are dreaming up perks to lure staff back into the office, office landlords are offering incentives to attract businesses to their premises. Ray White Commercial Head of Research Vanessa Rader said the incentives range from drinks and discount food to pilates sessions and special events, and have proved effective. “Post COVID-19 we … Read more
A total of $4.74 billion of commercial property transactions were conducted in the first quarter of 2023, 68.2% lower than the year before, according to data from Real Capital Analytics and Ray White. Ray White Commercial Head of Research Vanessa Rader said “a combination of rapidly rising interest rates, difficulty in obtaining finance and sentiment … Read more
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) today announced the cash rate will move by .25 percentage points to 3.85%. This follows the release of inflationary data last week that showed annual inflation had cooled slightly in the March quarter (7%) compared to the December quarter (7.8%). While many homeowners across the country have been impacted … Read more
If you’ve been hearing lots of stories about people refinancing their home loans in search of lower interest rates, there’s a very good reason. Refinancing is at record levels, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Borrowers refinanced $19.9 billion of mortgages in February – 22.6% higher than the year before, when refinancing … Read more
