With home loan interest rates as low as 2.99 per cent, borrowers have plenty of scope to negotiate a better rate or refinance. A lot of borrowers don’t know they can haggle with their lender. The consumer watchdog, the Australian…
Credit card lending rules to have wider impact
The impact of reforms to responsible lending assessments for credit cards, which took effect in January, will be extended next month when they are incorporated into the assessment of applications for other credit products. Since the beginning of the year,…
A fresh approach to equity release
Property fund manager DomaCom has entered the home equity release market with a product based on a shared equity structure, as an alternative to the standard loan structure of a reverse mortgage. Under the terms of Senior Equity Release, a…
Active fund managers lack persistence
Only a small minority of high-performing active Australian managed funds are able to maintain outperformance over peers or benchmarks over the long term. S&P Dow Jones Indices has tracked the performance consistency of active Australian managed funds to measure the…
Legg Mason & BetaShares launch active EM ETF
Legg Mason and BetaShares have launched the fourth active ETF through their strategic partnership- an emerging markets equity fund. The BetaShares Legg Mason Emerging Markets Fund provides investors with access to the superior growth potential offered by emerging market equities.…
Time to review insurance arrangements
Self-managed super fund members who have maintained an account with another fund so they can keep existing life insurance cover, need to review their arrangements ahead of changes to insurance in super next month. From 1 July, APRA-regulated super funds…
Q&A
Q: From time to time I come across an investment opportunity that looks interesting but it is only open to sophisticated investors. How do I know if I am a sophisticated investor? A: The Corporations Law requires that people buying…
Surviving the deposit rate crash
Banks and other deposit takers made their call on a Reserve Bank cut well before the central bank got around to last week’s 25 basis point cut, with a large number of them cutting their term deposit rates. The rate…
ATO to iron out clothing expense claims
The Australian Taxation Office is sceptical about the validity of many of the claims made for clothing and laundry expenses. Clothes bought to meet a dress code don’t qualify as uniforms. Last year, six million people claimed work-related clothing and…