Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a leading financial institutional based in Sydney. Commonwealth Bank of Australia provides deposits services, credit cards, personal and business loans, corporate financing, overdrafts and lines of credit, risk management solutions, super funds, financial planning, investment solutions, merchant services, international banking, and foreign exchange services.

Australia

North America

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Commonwealth Bank Reviews 2024 | BankerAdvisor

Commonwealth Bank

Fitch Ratings cut the United States’ long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to AA+ from AAA. The agency had placed the country’s rating on negative watch in May, citing the debt ceiling fight in Washington. “The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management,” Fitch said.

Fitch downgrades U.S. long-term rating to AA+ from AAA

Just a day after the Treasury Department released a $1 trillion borrowing estimate for the third quarter, questions are being raised about the extent to which foreign and domestic buyers can continue to keep up their demand for U.S. government debt. Further details about Treasury’s financing need will be released at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday. For now, the $1 trillion estimate, the largest ever for the July-September period, has analysts concluding that the U.S. is facing a deteriorating fiscal deficit outlook and continuing pressure to borrow.

‘Eye-popping’ $1 trillion third-quarter borrowing need from U.S. Treasury raises risk of buyers’ fatigue 

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari favors getting tougher on regional banks, following a crisis earlier this year that he said may not be over. Asked during a town hall whether he agrees with proposals setting higher capital requirements for banks with more than $100 billion in assets, the central bank official said, “My own personal opinion is it doesn’t go far enough. I think it’s a step in the right direction, but I would like to go significantly further.”

Regional banks slide after Fed’s Kashkari advocates ‘significantly further’ capital regulation

Moody’s Investors Services may downgrade its credit ratings on six major U.S. banks, including U.S. Bancorp, State Street Corp., and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., and has downgraded its debt ratings on several small and mid-sized banks as part of the credit ratings agency’s rash of rating actions on U.S. banks late Monday.

Moody’s places credit ratings of 6 major U.S. banks on review for downgrade 

A Fitch Ratings analyst warned that the U.S. banking industry has inched closer to another source of turbulence — the risk of sweeping rating downgrades on dozens of U.S. banks that could even include the likes of JPMorgan Chase. The ratings agency cut its assessment of the industry’s health in June, a move that analyst Chris Wolfe said went largely unnoticed because it didn’t trigger downgrades on banks. But another one-notch downgrade of the industry’s score, to A+ from AA-, would force Fitch to reevaluate ratings on each of the more than 70 U.S. banks it covers, Wolfe told CNBC in an exclusive interview at the firm’s New York headquarters.

Fitch warns it may be forced to downgrade dozens of banks, including JPMorgan Chase

U.S. banking regulators on Tuesday unveiled plans to force regional banks to issue debt to protect depositors in the event of more failures. All American banks with at least $100 billion in assets would be subject to the new requirement, which makes them hold a layer of long-term debt to absorb losses in the event of a government seizure, according to a joint notice from the Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Regulators unveil plans to force regional banks to raise debt in case of failure

The Bank of England’s losses on bonds bought to shore up the U.K. economy will be “materially higher than projected,” according to Deutsche Bank. In late July, the Bank of England estimated that it would require the U.K. Treasury to backstop £150 billion ($189 billion) of losses on its asset purchase facility.

The Bank of England is facing major losses on its bond purchases — and it’s set to get much worse

Subprime consumers are falling behind on their credit-card bills. From Generation Z and millennials to Generation X and baby boomers, credit-card delinquency rates have been trending upwards for four generations of borrowers since January 2020, reaching a new high in August, according to new data from VantageScore. Borrowers with a VantageScore between 300 and 600 across these four cohorts experienced an 8.9% delinquency rate — of 30 to 59 days — in July 2023, up from 7.49% a year earlier. Credit-card delinquency rates at smaller banks hit a record high of 7.51% in the second quarter of 2023, up from 6.01% at the same time last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank. 

Is there a subprime credit-card crisis on the horizon? 

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the US regional banking crisis that followed earlier this year had major economic and regulatory repercussions for lenders across the globe, some of which may be felt for years to come. But now that the more immediate threat of the crisis has dissipated, some clear winners have emerged. Shares of UBS (UBS) are up about 20% since it rescued Credit Suisse from collapse, and just last week the bank reported a $29 billion quarterly profit. The huge figure was almost entirely due to the discrepancy between Credit Suisse’s balance sheet value and the $3.8 billion that UBS paid to acquire the bank. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) shares, meanwhile, have gained more than 6% since it purchased First Republic Bank. 

How big banks won the banking crisis

U.S. banks collectively held more than $1.2 trillion in brokered deposits in the second quarter, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The total marked an 86% increase from a year earlier. Brokered deposits are what they sound like: A bank can go to a third-party broker such as Morgan Stanley or Fidelity to find customers to invest in the bank’s high-yielding certificates of deposit. That allows the bank to get big influxes of money at once, rather than customer by customer. Lots of banks are loading up on them—a sign of the distress that continues to afflict many lenders who now must compete for customer funds they long took for granted.  

Banks Load Up on $1.2 Trillion in Risky ‘Hot’ Deposits

Close to a third of all publicly-held, outstanding U.S. government debt is set to mature in the next 12 months, raising questions about where Treasury might go from there to finance the government’s borrowing needs. A total of $7.6 trillion will mature in the next year, approaching the level seen in early 2021. Concerns about Treasury’s increased issuance of T-bills and the potential for volatility or market disruptions emerged following the debt-ceiling fight in May, when angst over the government’s ability to pay all its bills pushed yields above 7% on debt maturing in early June. 

$7.6 trillion of publicly held U.S. government debt matures in next 12 months. What does the Treasury do next? 

The U.S. Federal Reserve launched FedNow in July, the first government real-time payment system in the U.S. The service allows banks and credit unions to transfer money for their customers instantly. Working alongside existing systems like Fedwire and FedACH, FedNow aims to improve the U.S.'s inter-bank and retail transaction infrastructure.

FedNow Has Launched As Blockchain Innovation Delivers Next-Gen Instant Payments

Even as the economy has surprised forecasters with its resilience, lenders have cut headcount or announced plans to do so, with the key exception being JPMorgan Chase. The next five largest U.S. banks cut a combined 20,000 positions so far this year, according to company filings. A key factor driving the cuts is that job-hopping in finance slowed drastically from earlier years, leaving banks with more people than they expected.

Big banks are quietly cutting thousands of employees, and more layoffs are coming

The U.S. financial services division of Chinese bank ICBC was hit by a cyberattack that reportedly affected the trade of U.S. Treasurys. ICBC, the world’s largest lender by assets, said Thursday its financial services arm experienced a ransomware attack “that resulted in disruption to certain” systems. Security expert have said ransomware from the hacking group LockBit was used to carry out the cyberattack on ICBC. 

China’s ICBC, the world’s biggest bank, hit by cyberattack that reportedly disrupted Treasury markets

Back in November, UBS chair Colm Kelleher predicted that the next financial crisis would happen in shadow banking — delightfully infuriating Apollo’s Marc Rowan, speaking at the same conference later that day. So, the Chairman of UBS was asked at the tail end of his presentation, what is the single biggest risk to financial markets? And Colm said, a blow-up in the shadow banking industry. And with that, he got off the stage.


Is private credit a systemic risk?

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell joined a chorus of US officials who have argued that mounting bad commercial real estate loans will likely cause some bank failures, but don’t pose a risk to the overall system.  The central bank chief told lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday that the Fed is talking with lenders to make sure they are on top of potential losses. His comments repeated the assessment of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who last month said there will likely be some failures, but the situation will be “manageable.”

Powell warns commercial real estate woes will lead to bank failures: ‘This is a problem that we’ll be working on for years’

Goldman Sachs Asset Management is reportedly planning a major expansion of its private credit portfolio. The Wall Street giant aims to grow that portfolio to $300 billion in five years, up from $130 billion, a senior executive told Reuters Tuesday (March 12). “It’s a huge opportunity,” said Marc Nachmann, Goldman Sachs’ global head of asset and wealth management. According to the report, Goldman has loftier goals than other banking titans. For example, Morgan Stanley is planning to double its private credit portfolio to $50 billion, while JPMorgan Chase has set aside at least $10 billion for private credit. 

Goldman Sachs Aims for $300 Billion Private Credit Portfolio

New York Community Bancorp Inc.’s stock lost more than a third of its value Wednesday in its steepest one-day drop ever, after it posted a surprise loss, built up its reserves and signaled challenges in the office-space sector with one of two troubled loans. The bank also said it would cut its dividend by more than two-thirds to build up capital to meet regulatory requirements as a larger Category IV bank with assets of $100 billion to $250 billion.  The Hicksville, N.Y.-based bank missed Wall Street’s revenue and net-interest-income estimates and reported an increase in net charge-offs.

New York Community Bancorp’s stock crushed on surprise loss, dividend cut and cost of two loans

Temenos shares were down over 6% on Friday after closing over 28% lower on Thursday.
The Swiss software company said its board of directors “fundamentally refutes” a report by short-seller Hindenburg Research. Short-seller Hindenburg Research made headlines after accusing Indian conglomerate Adani of stock manipulation and accounting fraud in early 2023.

Hindenburg’s latest short target Temenos rejects allegations as share price tumbles

The $1 billion-plus injection that New York Community Bank announced Wednesday is the latest example of private equity players coming to the need of a wounded American lender. Key to these deals is speed and discretion, according to advisors to several recent transactions and external experts. Steven Mnuchin reached out to NYCB directly to offer support amid headlines about the duress it was under, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Why private equity has been involved in every recent bank deal

The six largest U.S. banks saw delinquent commercial property loans nearly triple to $9.3 billion in 2023 amid high vacancy rates and increasing borrowing costs. Today, the sector is facing greater scrutiny from regulators amid growing risks to bank stability. In fact, for almost half of all U.S. banks, commercial real estate debt is the largest loan category overall. While commercial loans are more heavily concentrated in small U.S. banks, several major financial institutions have amassed significant commercial loan portfolios.

Visualizing Major U.S. Banks by Commercial Real Estate Exposure

Banks have now regained all deposits they lost following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. But that doesn't solve many of the problems still faced by regional lenders. The amount of deposits held by all US banks hit $17.56 trillion during the week ending March 20, according to the latest Federal Reserve data, exceeding pre-SVB levels for the first time since the California regional lender was seized on March 10, 2023.

Bank deposits are back above pre-SVB levels. Regional lenders still have problems.

In the six months following its groundbreaking launch in July 2023, FedNow has emerged as a transformative force in real-time payments, marking a significant departure from the traditional Automated Clearing House (ACH) system.  This shift signifies a pivotal moment in banking innovation, offering instantaneous transaction processing that aligns with the modern financial transaction demands.

How FedNow is Shaping Payments Since its Groundbreaking Launch

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