Australia's housing market staged a comeback in the March quarter as home building activity jumped more than 10 per cent on the back of renewed interest in flats, units and townhouses, figures showed today.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said, on a seasonal basis, the number of new homes and units built were up 10.6 per cent to 39,219 for the quarter.
Over the year, home building was up 4 per cent.
The sharp spike in building activity followed falls in the previous two quarters and occurred ahead of the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision to raise interest rates in May.
The ABS said new private sector housing rose 3.9 per cent to 25,738 for the three months to the end of March.
New private sector other residential building climbed 26.3 per cent to 12,048.
Economists had expected dwelling commencements to have fallen in the March quarter in the aftermath of first quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data.
Commonwealth Bank chief economist Michael Blythe said the strong result indicated the recent slowdown in housing over the last 18 months was shaping up to be one of the mildest on record.
"It's not to say there is another housing boom under way but the housing side of things will not be a huge drag on the economy in the next year," he said.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Malaysia fighting online credit card fraud
Although the usage of electronic payment in Malaysia is still low compared with developed countries, it is nonetheless a “fast mover” when responding to online fraud, MasterCard International vice-president for operations and advanced payment products (South-East Asia) David Chan said.
He said Malaysia was among the first countries in the world to migrate to EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa) cards in an effort to combat credit card fraud.
“Realising that online fraud can cause huge losses, banks in Malaysia are moving fast to equip themselves with more secure anti-fraud codes and devices.
“The rate of adoption by local banks is fast, judging from its size if compared with developed countries,” he told StarBiz after presenting his paper entitled “Banking Technologies and Cost Effectiveness: Migration to Electronic Payment” yesterday.
He added that online authentication was essential for sustaining continued online payments and banking growth.
Chan said online payments globally currently accounted about 10% of the total US$5tril plus e-payments business. He attributed this enormous figure to the rising e-commerce business worldwide.
He said although online fraud was 20 times higher than total card fraud in the US, nevertheless it had declined with the usage of more secure online fraud codes and devices.
Source: Malaysia Star
He said Malaysia was among the first countries in the world to migrate to EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa) cards in an effort to combat credit card fraud.
“Realising that online fraud can cause huge losses, banks in Malaysia are moving fast to equip themselves with more secure anti-fraud codes and devices.
“The rate of adoption by local banks is fast, judging from its size if compared with developed countries,” he told StarBiz after presenting his paper entitled “Banking Technologies and Cost Effectiveness: Migration to Electronic Payment” yesterday.
He added that online authentication was essential for sustaining continued online payments and banking growth.
Chan said online payments globally currently accounted about 10% of the total US$5tril plus e-payments business. He attributed this enormous figure to the rising e-commerce business worldwide.
He said although online fraud was 20 times higher than total card fraud in the US, nevertheless it had declined with the usage of more secure online fraud codes and devices.
Source: Malaysia Star
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