BFCSA Blog

  by: By Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer From: AAP September 29, 2012 12:10AM   A GLOBAL project has been launched to encourage pension and superannuation fund members to shift some of their $60 trillion in savings into funds that support clean and green technology. Deutsche Bank estimates less than two per cent of money held by pension, superannuation and sovereign wealth funds is invested in low-carbon assets. Now the independent, not-for-profit Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP) is asking the world's largest 1000 asset owners to reveal how they are addressing climate change and the "green economy". The AODP wants the funds to disclose information relating to five criteria: transparency, climate risk management, low-carbon investment, active ownership (involvement in the companies they invest in) and investment chain alignment (minimising conflicts of interest). The first global index of funds using the information is expected to be published online by AODP in...

Please forgive me if this has already been posted before ... Lisa     AAP  August 22, 2012 12:11AM   THE Australian Greens will move for a royal commission into whether the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) covered up evidence of bribery by its note-printing subsidiaries. The scandal was exposed in the media in mid-2009.A committal hearing in Melbourne last week heard eight former executives of the wholly RBA-owned NPA and the part-owned Securency were involved in a conspiracy to bribe public officials at foreign banks in trying to secure contracts to make plastic banknotes. But ABC Television reported on Tuesday then NPA company secretary Brian Hood detailed corruption concerns in the mid-2007 memo to then RBA deputy governor Ric Battellino. Greens banking spokesman Adam Bandt said he would move for the establishment of a full independent inquiry into the banknote bribery scandal. "The inquiry should have the powers of a royal...

  AAP August 25, 2012 1:22PM THE chair of a parliamentary committee says the bribery scandals at the Reserve Bank's two banknote-making companies could prompt the government to establish an anti-corruption body for federal agencies. Allegations were raised again in the past week about the bank's wholly owned subsidiaries Note Printing Australia and the part-owned Securency, where staff bribed foreign officials to gain contracts. Labor MP Melissa Parke, chairwoman of the joint Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity committee, said the government should canvass the option of creating a national anti-corruption body for commonwealth agencies. "The recent revelations concerning the RBA have laid bare the gaping hole in the oversight of the commonwealth public sector," Ms Parke told ABC radio on Saturday. RBA governor Glenn Stevens told a parliamentary economics committee on Friday that there had been "no cover-up". In a prepared statement, Mr Stevens defended the central bank's dealings on the issue,...