Nearly every Australian has super, but its settings don’t work for every Australian, according to the First Nations Foundation, which is advocating for changes around estate planning and the preservation age to make the system fairer.
Betting against acts of God is a great way to make money, but institutional allocations to natural catastrophe reinsurance have stayed relatively static even as some managers are generating double-digit uncorrelated returns.
NAB’s David Knights the new ACSA chair
(David Knights)
David Braga, who recently became the Australia and New Zealand chief executive of BNP Paribas Securities Services, has stood down as chair of the Australian Custodial Services Association, to be replaced by NAB Asset Servicing’s David Knights.
Knights is the general manager of client delivery at NAB, who took the spot at ACSA occupied by his former boss, Christine Bartlett, who retired from full-time executive roles earlier this year. This spot is what is known as “executive sponsor” of the communications working group – meaning both committee chair and ACSA board member.
Braga became ACSA chair, an honorary position which involves a lot of executive time, in 2013 after Pierre Jond, a former head of BNP Paribas SS in Australia, returned to France. Jond was replaced by Peter Baker at BNP, who late last year took up the role heading up Mercer Sentinel in Australia and New Zealand.
ACSA has also announced that Martin Carpenter, the head of Citi’s securities services and markets division, is stepping up to the deputy chair role.
Securities servicing is going through an unprecedented level of change, including structural shifts and new business opportunities, at the moment. Industry participants are busier than ever with their day jobs. Also, regulatory change requiring ACSA input is not yet complete.
