20 Jul Financial Services: Leveraging Australian Expertise
Financial services is expected to be an expanding area of interaction for Australian and Japanese players. This is coming about through two factors – the long term development and existing expertise of Australian capability and the impact of disintermediation or disruptive technologies which have the potential to bring, amongst other things, significant cost reductions in the provision of financial services.
Reflecting the first of these factors, the influential Financial Services Council led a delegation of Australian fund manager CEOs to Japan last month. Highlighting Australia’s interest and the importance it attaches to the expansion of bilateral business in this sector, the Hon Josh Frydenberg, Assistant Treasurer, accompanied the delegation which included:
- La Trobe Financial Services Limited
- Macquarie Investment Management Limited
- MLC Investment Management
- NikkoAM
- Perpetual Limited
- Russell Investments
The three day program included a series of briefings from major Japanese financial institutions. The AJBCC and JABCC partnered with the FSC to host a half day lunch and round table discussion on opportunities for collaboration in the sector both in Australia and Japan. (AJBCC member company PwC was a host for the function.) The Asia Region Funds Passport, a concept to “provide a multilaterally agreed framework to facilitate the cross border marketing of managed funds across participating economies in the Asia region”, was also a topic of discussion. (The mission was also greatly assisted by Austrade)