Australia

UBS is regarded as a yardstick for foreign banks in Australia, and this year simply confirmed it. Local chief executive Matthew Grounds’ team ended the review period top of the league table for mergers and acquisitions, as well as in equity capital markets.

An era ended at the so-called millionaires’ factory when legendary boss Nicholas Moore retired in November after more than a decade at the helm and 33 years at the bank. Moore has delivered an unbroken profit record at Macquarie, which has built up an infrastructure portfolio encompassing US tollways and European airports and utilities. His final months at the top were no exception: Moore announced net profit of A$1.31 billion ($942 million) for the first half of the financial year, which ends on September 30, up 5% higher from a year ago.

It seems perverse to hand out a best bank award down under given that a public inquiry into financial-sector misconduct has exposed widespread wrongdoing and poor governance.

The 29th annual Asiamoney Brokers Poll invited chief investment officers, fund managers and investment analysts to take part. Voters represented fund management houses, insurance companies, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and wealth managers from around the world. A total of 6,540 valid individual responses from 3,100 different institutions, including 411 hedge funds, were received.

With five prime ministers and five treasurers in six years, Australia’s top two political offices have been likened to an AirBnB short-let, but with an election looming, can the new treasurer Josh Frydenberg keep his surging opponent Chris Bowen from again becoming the country’s top economic policymaker?

Their numbers have soared from 100 in 2014 to more than 700 today – some firms will consolidate or be taken over, but most of them will fail; Asiamoney meets three startups that seem likely to stay the course.

In May 1989, the Sydney news magazine ‘The Bulletin’ published a cover story of characteristic Australian bluntness: ‘Why the banks are bastards.’