Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Commonwealth Bank of Australia and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. "IMPORTANT NOTICE: MOODY'S RATINGS AND PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY RETAIL INVESTORS. This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future.
Full Year 2019 Commonwealth Bank of Australia Earnings Call
(Bloomberg) -- Swedish payments and banking firm Klarna became the most valuable European fintech startup after new funding pushed its post-money valuation to $5.5 billion.Klarna reached that status after raising $460 million in an equity round that will help it “continue its rapid rise in the U.S. market where it is currently growing an annual rate of six million new U.S. consumers,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.With its new funding, the Stockholm-based startup leapfrogs European fintech darlings TransferWise and N26, which have recently been valued at $3.5 billion.Klarna helps online shoppers arrange financing at points of purchase, as well as provide merchants with payment tools. It challenges companies such as PayPal Holdings Inc., Square Inc. and Adyen NV, each of which has their own twist on facilitating commerce between sellers and shoppers.Dragoneer Investment Group led the raise, according to the statement. Other participants included the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, HMI Capital LLC, Merian Chrysalis Investment Co. and Sweden’s AP1 state pension fund, as well as accounts managed by BlackRock Inc. These additional investments follow the January announcement that the rapper known as Snoop Dogg had invested in the Swedish firm.Numis acted as exclusive financial adviser and placement agent to Klarna.To contact the reporters on this story: Ali Ingersoll in London at aingersoll1@bloomberg.net;Niklas Magnusson in Stockholm at nmagnusson1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon, Molly SchuetzFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- In a year when record heat is scorching Europe and the heaviest rain in decades has inundated parts of the U.S. Midwest, the Asia Pacific region is suffering from its own maelstrom of extreme weather.Drought, and floods in some areas, have devastated the livelihoods of thousands of people, and damaged crops in an area that produces most of the world’s palm oil, natural rubber and rice, and more than a third of its sugar. While parts of China endured the most rain in almost 60 years, water levels on the Mekong, one of Asia’s largest river systems, have fallen to among the lowest ever, and areas of southern India are battling relentless drought.“Over the past several years, we’ve been seeing more dryness than not in the region,” said Donald Keeney, senior agricultural meteorologist at Maxar, a U.S.-based weather consultant. “These conditions will cause a decline in production of the main crops later this year and into next,” he said.Dry conditions have wilted rice fields in Thailand and Indonesia and parched sugar cane plantations and oilseed crops in India. Here’s a snapshot of how weather is affecting output in some key areas:ChinaIn northern regions, lack of rain and drought have threatened some crops, though the impact is mitigated by irrigation. By contrast, some southern provinces had the heaviest rainfall since 1961 in the five weeks to early July, according to the meteorological administration, hampering early rice output and worsening pest problems. China is the top producer of wheat and rice, and second-biggest for corn, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.IndiaIndia jostles with Brazil as the biggest producer of sugar. Output this year may drop to the lowest in three years as a prolonged drought shrivels cane in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, trimming the domestic surplus and potentially curbing exports. Deficient rainfall from the annual monsoon also threatens oilseed crops, which could boost foreign purchases of edible oils, including palm oil, where the country is the largest importer. Still, Mumbai has been hit by heavy downpours, a sign of the weather’s erratic nature.Indonesia, MalaysiaThese are the world’s top palm oil producers. The next three months will be crucial to determine how output will turn out next year and dryness in areas of Borneo island will be closely watched, said Ling Ah Hong, director of plantation consultant Ganling Sdn, who’s worked in the industry for more than four decades. Rice production is threatened by dry weather on Java island, where some areas are without rain for more than 60 days.Indonesia is also stepping up efforts to prevent a repeat of haze that blanketed much of Southeast Asia four years ago by deploying thousands of firefighters and emergency response teams in palm oil- and rubber-producing regions.ThailandThailand is the globe’s top grower of rubber, and one of the largest exporters of sugar and rice. The worst drought in years in some areas is hurting crops, and caused authorities to cut estimates for cane output and rice shipments. Cloud-seeding planes have been deployed, and pumps and trucks have been used to divert water to the affected areas in the north and northeast.VietnamA heat wave and drought have hit parts of the country, hurting rice and rubber. Still, the central highlands, where most coffee is grown, have escaped major harm so far. Vietnam is the largest producer of the robusta variety.AustraliaMuch of the east coast is still gripped by a drought that began more than two years ago. The dry conditions are worst in Queensland, the biggest beef-producing state, but extend into much of New South Wales. The situation is much better in Western Australia, where the wheat crop had good late rain and is likely to be on a par with the bumper season last year. Even so, Australia is likely to import more wheat after the coming harvest, said Tobin Gorey, a strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.(Updates to add Indonesia fighting fires in eighth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Niu Shuping, Pratik Parija, Yoga Rusmana, Anuradha Raghu, Mai Ngoc Chau and Andrew Hobbs.To contact the reporter on this story: Siraphob Thanthong-Knight in Bangkok at rthanthongkn@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sunil Jagtiani at sjagtiani@bloomberg.net, ;Anna Kitanaka at akitanaka@bloomberg.net, James PooleFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
SYDNEY/BENGALURU (Reuters) - Australia's three biggest banks said they will test a new bank-guarantee platform for shopkeepers that uses a shared database, claiming the project would mark the world's first use of blockchain technology to process retail financing. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd are teaming up with local Westfield mall owner Scentre Group to test the use of IBM software to process financing contracts on the same network. The banks running the trial believe switching to blockchain could cut processing time to a day from a month and reduce the risk of fraud.
SYDNEY/BENGALURU, July 4 (Reuters) - Australia's three biggest banks said they will test a new bank-guarantee platform for shopkeepers that uses a shared database, claiming the project would mark the world's first use of blockchain technology to process retail financing. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corp and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd are teaming up with local Westfield mall owner Scentre Group to test the use of IBM software to process financing contracts on the same network.
Half Year 2019 Commonwealth Bank of Australia Earnings Call
Australia's central bank cut rates to a record low on Tuesday and signalled willingness to go further as a worsening Sino-U.S. trade war raises recession risks for the world economy, pushing policymakers into what could be a global monetary easing cycle. RBA Governor Philip Lowe said the rate cut was designed to support employment growth and lift inflation, which has consistently undershot its 2%-to-3% medium-term target. "It is possible that the current policy settings will be enough – that we just need to be patient.
What’s curious is that Commonwealth – the biggest of the four banks that dominate deposit-taking and lending in Australia – is acting an awful lot like cornered prey when things don’t seem so bad. For another, Commonwealth Bank is head and shoulders above its rivals on two crucial fronts: price-to-book and net interest margins. Commonwealth Bank has the largest workforce among Australia’s big four banks, and the second-lowest sales-per-employee ratio in the most recent half-year reporting period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Moody's Investors Service has assigned definitive ratings to the notes issued by Perpetual Corporate Trust Limited in its capacity as the trustee of the Flexi ABS Trust 2019-1. "IMPORTANT NOTICE: MOODY'S RATINGS AND PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY RETAIL INVESTORS.