The Australian financial services sector is holding up remarkably well when compared to its counterparts in other countries, according to new research released this week by international management consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
Oliver Wyman has released its 12th annual State of Financial Industry report, which has found Australia is one of the most resilient industries in the world, largely as a result of the strength of some of the major financial institutions such as QBE Insurance Group and Westpac Banking Corporation.
Commenting on the survey outcome, Oliver Wyman Australasia head David Moloney said the Australian majors had shown resilience to date, outperforming their global peers on a relative shareholder value basis.
“To succeed, majors need to quickly formulate cycle adaptive strategies and reset their business models to significantly lower long-term growth rates,” he said.
Moloney said that in this respect some firms had done well, such as QBE, which had topped the Oliver Wyman Shareholder Performance Hall of Fame this year for five-year, relative-adjusted shareholder return among large caps.
He said that post crisis between August 2007 and December 2008, outperformers among large caps were US companies such as ACE, but that Australia wasn’t too far behind, with QBE in ninth place and Westpac Banking Corporation in 18th place.
The report analysis suggested that some regions had done better than others in the current global financial crisis, with Latin America presenting the second highest Shareholder Performance Index over five years, while Australian and Canadian banks had posted strong performance and exhibited strong capital ratios.
