Broker

After several denials, ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) has now confirmed that its online broking business E*Trade Australia became a victim of security breach during the holidays. The broking site received thousands of emails regarding a "denial of service" attack as customers from overseas cannot access their accounts.

ASIC is cracking down on brokers - with the vision of having them disclose any connections - or fees that they receive from companies they review in their research notes. Given the recent events and news from Citigroup and the Westpoint collapse, ASIC has called for submissions to a discussion paper detailing case studies of examples where there has been conflicts of interest. In the discussion paper, ASIC presents how retail and wholesale financial advisers and fund managers in their research reports currently manage their conflicts of interest.