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banking and financial services |
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Banks and financial services institutions are crucial to the growth of the Australian and world economies.
According to Government statistics, finance and insurance is the third largest sector in Australia's economy, generating almost 8% of GDP.
In 2005-06, the finance and insurance industry in Australia contributed A$66.4 billion or 7.7% of Australia's total factor income from all industries.
Australia's financial markets almost doubled in turnover between 2001-02 and 2005-06, reaching A$100 trillion, with an annual average growth rate of 19%. While growth is spread across Australia's domestic market, key growth areas are foreign exchange, equities, futures and managed funds, particularly pension funds, and services to finance companies.
Australia has one of the largest pool of investment fund assets in the world and the largest in Asia, with consolidated assets at the end of June 2006 of A$1096 billion. Superannuation funds account for 70% of this volume and are expected to triple in the next 10 years.
Australia is amongst the world's leading centres for international finance and business services. Banks, brokers, securities firms and insurers from around the world provide a massive pool of financial liquidity and human expertise.
A sector of innovation
The financial services sector is a sector of innovation - every day new financial products, new ways of protecting business against risk, and new technologies are created to make business more cost effective and increase a company's ability to react to a fast changing world. The impact of this sector on consumers, businesses and governments across the world is huge. This makes it an extremely attractive but competitive proposition for newly qualified accountants. Financial services institutions want to hire the best people in the market and offer the most competitive salaries and impressive bonus packages.
Newly qualified accountants traditionally enter the financial services sector through one of the following routes:
* Source: City of London, 2005.
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