Westpac’s Defiance!

Amidst all the mouth-frothing about the decision by ANZ and Westpac to add 0.06% and 0.10% respectively to their standard variable rate home loans, Yahoo news has summed it up neatly with…

“Westpac has become the second of the four big banks to raise interest rates in defiance of the Reserve Bank of Australia”

Defiance?  Reserve Bank?

Some other headlines of note:

Herald Sun – Greedy banks slug you another $240 a year

The Australian – Two of Australia's big four banks have defied Wayne Swan's calls for restraint

Adelaide Now – Banks rake in money, alienate customers

News.com.au – Westpac, ANZ lift variable rates after RBA  keeps them on hold

Sydney Morning Herald – Bold and bootyful ANZ set to lead the rate pack

Bootyful?

Faced with this kind of nonsense it’s surprising that the banks bother to explain what they are up to….it only interferes with the outrage.

Banana smoothie anyone?

It seems a fair bet that the RBA will cut rates next week and that some or all of the banks won’t follow suit with their home loans.  This isn’t totally unreasonable given what’s been happening to their cost of funds, but what is unreasonable is the prospect of another “banana smoothie” situation where one of the banks tries vainly to describe what’s happening with interest rates in layman’s terms.

Not exactly Westpac’s  finest hour!

First home owners and crack cocaine

Chris Richardson from Deloitte Access has an interesting piece on government stimulus programs in Deloitte’s quarterly Business Outlook, which includes the following neat little summary of government first home owners schemes:

“First home owner programs are the crack cocaine of fiscal stimulus. They usually work a treat. But they make young couples spend too much on their first home, making their lives miserable down the track.”

Some other extracts of the report can be found here.

Low-doc loans “a concern” to ASIC

But apparently not to the AOFM.

The AFR today includes a piece relating to ASIC’s first review of mortgage brokers’ compliance with new responsible lending rules.

It’s stated that low-doc loans represent the area of greatest concern to the corporate regulator, which is why it makes it all the more puzzling that another arm of government, the Australian Office of Financial Management, is happy to buy these things as part of its RMBS support arrangements. Low-doc loans were certainly on their shopping list in 2010 (see Low-doc loans? Ship ‘em in!).  Is this still the case? If so, why?

Deutsche Bank – settling for second

More financial institution climbing inspired silliness on the front page of today’s AFR:

I know parallax can do some strange things, but that “peak” that the brave men and/or women of Deutsche Bank have just scaled (a feat apparently accomplished by putting their clients first) is clearly lower than the one just a couple of hundred metres away.  Quitters!

As for the fine print, it reads “This advertisement has been approved and/or communicated by Deutsche Bank AG and appears as a matter of record only.”

Care factor?  A matter of record? What are they babbling about?

Speaking of babbling, there’s more weird banking/climbing stuff here and here.

EU Leaders

Given the financial catastrophes engulfing their countries, it’s interesting to note what their leaders are focussing on:

Bank ROEs

This is what the Bankers Association means when it says bank profits are "middle of the road"

Occupy Wall St. – that’s telling them

Almost as catchy as “hell no, we won’t go!”

         

ASX goes rock climbing

Following the trend of financial services firms using “inspirational” climbing themes to promote their wares (e.g. here) , the ASX has now inexplicably added this graphic to the front page of their website at asx.com.au. Clicking “find out more” provides some further info about exchange traded options, but has no further clues about why the ASX would promote them with climbing imagery.

The photo raises a couple of interesting points:

1. What exactly is the bloke doing?

2. What relevance does it have to exchange traded equity options?

Taking the points in order, it’s very difficult to say what the hell he’s up to.  The double tie-in points – one much higher than his harness, one much lower, suggests that he’s sitting in some kind of belaying seat.  The role played by the second rope, to which he’s clinging grimly, is unclear.  Actually the whole thing’s unclear, which brings me to my second point – what has this to do with equity options?  The only possible thing I can think of is that the climber is engaged in some kind of elaborate self-rescue scenario, thereby having a tenuous link to the use of options to hedge physical positions.

In any event, it’s rubbish.

On which subject this highly motivational poster recently came to my attention:

Ignoring the general confusion surrounding the text (what on earth are they driving at?) I particularly like way they’ve photoshopped the rope out of the picture, but left the harness in.  Or am I missing something…is this some kind weird deep water solo set up?  If I ever meet a deep water soloist I’ll remember to ask. 

Carbon tax and the voice of reason

Amidst all the foot-stamping and mouth-frothing that’s surrounding the supposed “debate” on the carbon tax, it’s nice to see that some of our commentariat are able to keep things in perspective: refer Peter Martin this morning.