Category: Finance and banking

Keeping track of company directors

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It’s been nine years since someone suggested a way to stop company directors from avoiding creditors by creating a ‘Phoenix’ company. ‘Phoenixing’ describes the process when a new business arises from the ashes of a liquidated company. It’s a loophole that allows unscrupulous people to leave their debts behind with the liquidated company and start afresh (leaving creditors out in the cold). The total cost of Phoenixing to the Australian economy is estimated to be…

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Hoarding cash in a cashless society

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Australians have been hoarding cash, particularly through the first year of Covid-19, despite forecasts that we will be a 98% cashless society by 2024. Even if this prediction from global payments giant FIS comes to pass, some 540,000 Australians will still prefer to use cash. You may recall a flurry of news stories on this topic in March. The research commented on the effect of a de facto ban on cash during the first year…

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How deep is the financial hardship well?

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It is probably no comfort to anyone to reflect on the year when investors could get 14.95% on a bank term deposit. It was January 1991, the recession Paul Keating said we had to have. People with personal loans and credit card debt watched horrified as repayment rates went to 20% and beyond. The average variable mortgage rate rose to 17.5% at the same time. The gap between the haves and have-nots in that era…

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Taking An Interest In Recessionary Economics

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The end of financial year meeting of the Basil and Sybil Cheeseparer Superannuation Fund was going well until the Trustees (a) found that their investment strategy was out of sync with reality and (b) failed to find a fixed interest investment that would return more than 2.50% over five years. “We should stick it under the mattress,” said Sybil. “Your side or mine?” quipped Basil. As you should know, even if economics is not your…

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