BFCSA Blog

SMSF property owners urged to have contingency plan as more of them sell Australian Financial Review 25 Jan 2019 12:14 PM Duncan Hughes   More self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) members invested in residential property are selling thanks to rising loan costs, increased vacancy rates and tighter super regulations. So say lawyers and accountants, who highlight the importance of having contingency plans in place when properties are bought by SMSFs using non-recourse loans. The chief difficulty is having to fund increasing costs – more expensive rates as lenders pull out and times when the property is untenanted – from super contributions which are now capped at $25,000 a year. Expenses can be funded only by resources in the super fund. Charis Liew, principal of superannuation services at chartered accountant and financial adviser William Buck, says an increasing number of SMSF property borrowers are considering their exit options. SMSF property investors should have...

Financial Reporting Council claims no 'systemic problem' with audit quality Australian Financial Review at 25 Jan 2019 — 11:00 PM Edmund Tadros   The government body tasked with reviewing the disciplinary regime for company auditors has already formed the view there is no systemic problem with audit quality despite a report by the corporate regulator finding that there was inadequate evidence behind the findings of one in five reviewed audits. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), which is responsible for oversight of accounting standards, has been asked by the Morrison government to review the adequacy of auditor disciplinary functions operated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and professional accounting bodies including Chartered Accountants ANZ. For its part, CA ANZ echoed the confidence of the FRC in the current standard of audits when it told AFR Weekend that ASIC's report, which was released on Thursday, showed audit quality is "heading in the...

ASIC targets questionable asset values in review of financial reports Australian Financial Review 25 Jan 2019 2:38 PM Jonathan Shapiro   The corporate watchdog has told directors and auditors of major companies and public entities to lift their game when it comes to valuing assets, demanding they improve disclosure, pay more attention to impairment indicators and stop using unrealistic cash-flow forecasts. In its annual review of financial reports for the year ending June 30, 2018, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said it had made inquiries into 55 of 215 listed and public-interest entities, concerning 79 matters. The highest number of inquiries related to impairment and other asset values, while 18 inquiries related to revenue recognition and 11 to tax accounting. The regulator said it found instances where auditors and directors did not assess assumptions derived from external sources and made unreasonable cash-flow forecasts that had "exceeded actual cash flows for...

Unhappy Banking’s Shannon linked to big-fee firms The Australian 12:00am January 26, 2019 Ben Butler   EXCLUSIVE  Businesses connected to Unhappy Banking advocate Geoff Shannon charged clients sky-high fees, an investigation by The Weekend Australian ­reveals. Emails sent by Mr Shannon also reveal he directed colleagues at the businesses, Unhappy Customers and Business And Personal Solutions, at the time when he was banned from managing companies because he was bankrupt. Mr Shannon denies he ever controlled the relevant companies and said he was only ever an employee and a consultant at the time. Other emails appear to show him directing a colleague to backdate an important financial document as far as legally possible as part of efforts to stave off creditors of a client. Mr Shannon has been a leading voice in the campaign against badly behaved banks, regularly appearing in the media and at hearings into the finance sector over...

Michael Roddan   Property investors are retreating from the housing market due to “uncertainty about future negative gearing and capital gains tax policy” Documents released by Treasury under Freedom of Information laws reveal chief financial officers and managing directors of some of the nation’s biggest companies relayed their concerns about the “softening in demand” in the property sector. The confidential briefings show business leaders are concerned about the downturn, which has also hit owner-occupiers wanting to sell their homes. Treasury’s Business Liaison Program, which surveys large and small companies from major industries to inform the forecasts of the government’s key economic department, said property sector chiefs believed the main trigger was tightened lending standards from the banking sector following a crackdown by financial regulators and after the banking royal commission. “Owner-occupiers have retreated from selling because the value of their own home has fallen and the prospect of a sale is...

Mortgage brokers and small banks spared from Banking Royal Commission crackdown Australian Financial Review 25 Jan 2019 8:00 PM John Kehoe, James Frost   Mortgage brokers and smaller lenders are set to escape a major crackdown in in the Morrison government's response to the royal commission into financial services, because Treasurer Josh Frydenberg wants to maintain competitive pressure against the big four banks and keep credit flowing to the economy. The financial services industry is on edge waiting for the royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne to deliver his final report to the government by next Friday February 1. Government sources signalled that the Morrison government would be reluctant to impose major new red tape on mortgage brokers and other smaller lenders, for fear of strengthening the power of the big four banks; ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank and Westpac. Any rule changes are more likely to be tweaks and...

Banking royal commission: What bankers dread will come in Hayne's final report Australian Financial Review25 Jan 2019 11:00 PM Karen Maley   It's the question on every banker's lips. With less than a week to go before Commissioner Kenneth Hayne delivers his final, fateful report, just how far will he go in extirpating the venal practices and customs of the industry that have been allowed to flourish, virtually untouched, for decades. At the centre of the feverish speculation are three key questions: Will the Commissioner announce flagship reforms that are bound to transform the critical home lending and financial advice markets by, for instance, changing the rules for paying mortgage brokers or banning vertically-integrated firms. Will his key report recommend that criminal charges be laid against some of the country's most senior bankers and some of its most venerated financial institutions – bringing a brutal end to the benign decades-long regime...

'Doom loop' threatens to send Aussie dollar plummeting Bloomberg 24 January 2019 8:53am Ruth Carson, Masaki Kondo   The beleaguered Australian dollar faces a growing threat: an addiction to real estate is creating a debt mountain. After being the worst-performing developed-nation currency in 2018, the Aussie is set to extend losses this year as rising indebtedness at households and the economy overall make it more likely the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut interest rates, according to both HSBC and Rabobank. HSBC sees a further 7 per cent slide to 66 US cents by year-end, while Rabobank tips 68 cents. "The RBA just sat there watching the housing bubble grow for the past couple of years," said Michael Every, head of Asia financial markets research at Rabobank in Hong Kong. "You're in a doom loop. Now that the Federal Reserve is finally on hold, the RBA can finally talk about cutting...

Chinese exit hits apartment development market The Australian 12:00am January 25, 2019 Lisa Allen, Ben Wilmot   EXCLUSIVE  Dozens of development sites in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, some large enough for 600-unit apartment towers, are hitting the market as Chinese developers plagued by poor buyer appetite and lack of finance are forced to sell. The Bushells site in Sydney’s Concord that can sustain more than 600 units is understood to have hit the market at the behest of its Asian owners at a price tag of about $200 million but has already been rejected by a troika of developers spooked by the looming real estate crash amid the 9 per cent drop in average residential values across Sydney last year. Businessman and property developer David Kingston, a former Rothschilds investment banker, says apartment development site prices could halve this year.  “The apartment market is in serious trouble and development sites are...

NSW in the gun for apartment defect liabilities The Australian 12:00am January 25, 2019 Sam Buckingham-Jones   EXCLUSIVE  The NSW government could be liable for any major defects in at least four major apartment ­projects in Sydney Olympic Park as well as a flagship tower in the city’s $8 billion Green Square project under its own laws that define the “developer” as the legal owner of the land. Following revelations the government may foot some of the bill to fix the damaged Opal Tower in Olympic Park, it can be revealed that four other developments are in the same situation. Opal Tower cracked over eight seconds on Christmas Eve, prompting the evacuation of more than 300 people from the 392-apartment, 36-storey building and several investigations by teams of engineers. Earlier this month, The Australian revealed a “loophole” with the NSW Home Building Act arising from recent court ­decisions that the owner...

NAB lifts rates, feels the heat Australian Financial Review 24 Jan 2019 7:34 PM James Frost, John Kehoe, Duncan Hughes   National Australia Bank has put a target on its back, lifting home-loan rates just a week before the release of potentially damaging recommendations for the sector from banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne and just months from a federal election. The bank's decision to capitulate to higher funding costs and lift rates on Thursday also attracted political scrutiny, with the Morrison government saying it was up to the bank to explain its decision while the Opposition described the timing as opportunistic and cynical. NAB raised the standard variable rate by between 12 and 16 basis points, ending a pledge made by chief executive Andrew Thorburn in September to keep rates on hold as part of a strategy to rebuild trust with its customers after a series of questionable practices were exposed...

AMP chairman David Murray concedes he could fall Australian Financial Review 24 Jan 2019 10:30 PM Aaron Patrick   EXCLUSIVE  AMP chairman David Murray says he will not bow to rebel shareholders unhappy with the historic decision to sell the company's life insurance operation even though he concedes they could remove him from the board. Investors who control almost half the shares likely to be needed to vote him out have indicated they are prepared to sack Mr Murray, who was appointed in May to stabilise AMP following damaging revelations at the banking royal commission that cost his predecessor and the chief executive their jobs. Due to face shareholders at the company's annual meeting in four months, Mr Murray acknowledged he could lose the vote, a move that would be almost unprecedented for a major Australian company and a major personal blow. He accused a group of angry shareholders of putting...

ASIC takes small stick to Afterpay The Australian 12:00am January 25, 2019 Richard Gluyas   Fears of a crackdown on the booming buy now, pay later ­industry have eased after the ­corporate regulator told a Senate committee that a light regulatory touch through the proposed ­expansion of its product intervention powers was a sensible first step. ASIC senior executive leader Michael Saadat told the committee, which is ­inquiring into the ­extension of credit to vulnerable Australians, that the reform would enable it to ­directly ­address any consumer harm by forcing providers to adopt more stringent safeguards. “If consumers are (still) experi­encing bad outcomes, we’d recommend further reform,” Mr Saadat said. “The industry is relatively new. It’s growing very quickly, admittedly, but we think product intervention powers will enable us to respond quickly to emerging issues.” A gulf emerged this week ­between industry leaders Afterpay and Zip over the most ­appropriate regulatory...

Auditors 'compromised' by providing consulting work: ASIC Australian Financial Review 24 Jan 2019 11:00 PM Edmund Tadros, Vesna Poljak   The corporate regulator has fired a warning shot over the big accounting firms and their lucrative consulting businesses, highlighting cases where auditors have compromised the "appearance of independence". The Australian Securities and Investments Commission found that one in five audits reviewed lacked the desired assurance that company financial statements were free from material error in its 2017-18 audit inspection program. The 20 per cent deficiency rate for the 18 months to June 30, 2018 represented a slight improvement from the 23 per cent recorded for the previous 18-month review to December 31, 2016, but was still higher than the 18 per cent rate recorded for the 18 months to June 2015. ASIC commissioner John Price said more needed to be done to improve audit quality over the long term. The figures...

Homeless 'emergency': 40% of those needing housing help turned away Sydney Morning Herald 22 January 2019 6:32pm Adam Carey, Benjamin Preiss   Almost 40 per cent of people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness in Victoria were refused when seeking help last year, as the state’s social housing shortage grew more acute. New figures reveal the Andrews government failed to increase the size of Victoria’s social housing stocks in its first term, instead overseeing a small decline in the amount of social housing across the state. The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services, published on Tuesday, reveals that Victoria has the second worst record in the country for failing to meet the housing needs of vulnerable people, behind NSW. It also reveals that the state went backwards in tackling the problem during Labor’s first term. There were 80,705 public and community housing units in Victoria when Labor came to...

Ordinary bankers’ fears are tightening the credit squeeze The Australian 7:52am January 23, 2019 Robert Gottliebsen   Truth is often stranger than fiction. The current severe bank credit squeeze is taking bankers close to the point where they will control your ability to eat takeaway, buy a slab of beer or a bottle of wine, or even have a baby. Big Brother had nothing on 2019 banking, Australian style. And I fear this new style of banking has grave implications for the way banks are being managed and the effectiveness of any interest rate cuts. Let me take you into this new world with true stories. Imagine you are a person who has never missed a bank loan repayment and you have substantial equity in your home. So you think you are a trustworthy big four bank customer and will be able to easily arrange a small increase in your home...

Ordinary bankers’ fears are tightening the credit squeeze The Australian 7:52am January 23, 2019 Robert Gottliebsen   Truth is often stranger than fiction. The current severe bank credit squeeze is taking bankers close to the point where they will control your ability to eat takeaway, buy a slab of beer or a bottle of wine, or even have a baby. Big Brother had nothing on 2019 banking, Australian style. And I fear this new style of banking has grave implications for the way banks are being managed and the effectiveness of any interest rate cuts. Let me take you into this new world with true stories. Imagine you are a person who has never missed a bank loan repayment and you have substantial equity in your home. So you think you are a trustworthy big four bank customer and will be able to easily arrange a small increase in your home...

Banking royal commission: Labor to adopt Hayne in full Australian Financial Review 22 Jan 2019 — 11:45 PM John Kehoe   A Labor government will seek to carry out all the recommendations of the royal commission into financial services and both sides of politics will need a "very, very, very good reason" not to adopt any finding, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says. "Your default position should be if the royal commission recommends it, it shall be done," Mr Bowen told The Australian Financial Review in an interview at his family home in western Sydney. He also hopes the final report due next week, and subsequent political policy responses, will ease a credit squeeze for home buyers and small business by giving the tetchy lenders more certainty about how responsible lending laws will operate and be enforced by regulators. "I'm hopeful that once the sector sees the report and it's implemented and...

Chris Bowen touts $200b tax hike 'buffer' against global 'headwinds' Australian Financial Review 22 Jan 2019 — 11:45 PM John Kehoe   EXCLUSIVE  Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said he was concerned about risks to Australia from the slowing world economy, so Labor must implement all its $200 billion-plus in pledged tax rises to arm the federal government with a bigger fiscal "buffer" to counteract any global downturn. In an hour-long interview with The Australian Financial Review at his family home in western Sydney on Tuesday, he also flagged that he would give the prudential regulator stronger powers to close underperforming superannuation funds and implement all recommendations by the Hayne royal commission into financial services. Mr Bowen, who would be treasurer in a Shorten government if Labor wins the federal election expected in May, said curtailing tax breaks for investors in property and shares would be partly offset by his stimulatory tax...

Watchdogs wined, dined and given corporate gifts without scrutiny Sydney Morning Herald 22 January 2019 11:48pm Royce Millar & Chris Vedelago   EXCLUSIVE  Australia’s corporate and consumer watchdogs are allowing commissioners and staff to accept gifts and hospitality from the industries they regulate but refuse to publicly disclose the largesse or potential conflicts of interest. Presents in recent years include champagne and vintage wines, expensive dinners, concert tickets, airline upgrades and customised “training seminars” supplied by stockbrokers, banks, law firms and industry lobby groups. In 2017, investment bank Macquarie Group wined and dined Australian Securities and Investments Commission staff at Sydney's Beta Bar at the same time the bank was the subject of multiple ASIC investigations and had been ordered to pay former clients tens of millions of dollars in compensation. And in 2016, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission staff justified being guests of Energy Australia for dinner at a Melbourne...