As the war for talent intensifies and stakeholders focus on the S in ESG, the boards and senior management of Australia’s financial institutions (FIs) must take steps to deal with them. With approximately 30% of Australian residents having been born overseas and Australian companies needing more skilled migrants, FIs need to pay greater attention to improving the cultural diversity of their workplaces. However, managing cultural diversity, including in leadership ranks at work, is challenging.

Following the strongest rise in property values since the 1980’s, rising inflation and higher interest rate expectations mean the housing market is now well into its sharpest downswing on record. Eliza Owen, Head of Research, Australia, at CoreLogic will unpack capital growth trends in housing market, and identify some of the risk, and potential reward, the Australian housing market has to offer in 2023

Australia’s economy has grown strongly through 2022, despite the headwinds from high inflation, global geopolitical shocks and rising interest rates; the release of pent-up demand post-lockdown and strong employment growth have supported household spending, and a solid pipeline of construction work and rising capital expenditure by businesses have also added to demand. Going into 2023 growth momentum will inevitably slow, and this will be welcomed by the RBA as the Board continues to raise rates to tame inflation. The data still suggests that a soft landing is possible, and compared to other economies Australia remains better placed; GDP in the US has broadly stagnated this year, while Europe is still grappling with the fall out from the conflict in Ukraine.