Good afternoon,

Accounting and consultancy firm KPMG is swinging the axe in order to bring down costs by a projected $80m. About 250 jobs will be affected, of which 200 will go under redundancy provisions.

Meanwhile, it has been the Australian sharemarket’s worst week since mid April, despite US gains as bond yields fell on lower-than-expected inflation data. The ASX 200 closed 0.3 per cent lower at 7724.7 points on Friday, and was down 1.7 per cent for the week compared with a 1.6 per cent gain on the S&P 500 in the US. 

And if you live in Tasmania, South Australia, the ACT or the Northern Territory and consider yourself wealthy, sadly the ANZ won’t give you access to its new “low-risk” mortgages of $2m or more, whereby borrowers only need to present a 5 per cent deposit.