Image Source: AFR Buying a morning coffee has never seemed simpler. We order our drinks, tap our cards or phones on a payment terminal and within seconds, the transaction is complete. Behind this seemingly effortless tap is an interconnected network of banks, payment providers and card networks working together to move money from customer to merchant. On 1st October 2026, Australia’s payment system underwent a significant change. Following reforms by the Reserve Bank of Aus

Image source: istockphoto.com Picture a finance professional. Sharp suit, sharper opinions, confidence in a room full of people twice their age. Is the person you pictured a man or a woman? If you pictured a man, you’re not alone. We tend to fill in gaps with assumptions, often without realising we’re doing it. A 2026 article from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics explores how language shapes these mental shortcuts (Peirolo, 2026). Research on gendered job title

Open your wardrobe and look past the three outfits you actually rotate. Behind them sits a graveyard of optimism – the going-out top still wearing its tags and the jeans that fit “once I get back into the gym”. Congratulations, you're now managing an investment portfolio. And judging by the returns, you might want to fire the fund manager. Think about it like an investor. Every item you buy is a position and its price is your capital outlay. Every time you wear it, the positi

In late August, Sydney property developer Bathla Group entered administration owing more than $3 billion (Lin, 2026). Forty private credit funds had lent to the group, with amounts ranging from $1.5 million to $340 million (Taylor, 2026). The collapse has brought attention to private credit, a part of the financial system not many have heard of, yet one that is connected to the retirement savings of most Australians. This article explains what private credit is, why it has gr

In 2026, AI has moved beyond being a “buzzword” and is now rapidly shaping our day-to-day lives. It already influences what we watch, what we buy and how we work. Increasingly, it is extending into the retail sector and is set to influence how much consumers pay for groceries in physical stores. Photo Source: Pricer Supermarkets and other retail stores are increasingly adopting AI-supported technology and pricing tools that allow prices to change frequently and dynamically,

Source: Bethany Rae, AFR This Tuesday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered the 2026–27 Federal Budget against a challenging economic backdrop with inflation sitting at 4.6% and ongoing pressure from the global oil shock (RBA, 2026). Yet despite the difficult conditions, the budget introduced new reforms and overhauls that have sparked significant conversation. So what do these changes actually mean for young Australians? Tax Wins for Income Earners Major changes are coming to th

Photo source: The Block You didn’t suddenly become bad with money. Your rent, groceries, petrol, insurance, electricity bill, coffee and Uber just all repriced at the same time. This is the strange macroeconomic contradiction of 2026: Australia is not technically in a recession, yet the legacy of Australia’s recent per-capita GDP recession means many households still feel like the economy is going backwards on an individual level. Household spending has boomed and the labour

Opinion Photo source: ccn.com Prediction markets are trading platforms where participants trade in contracts whose payoff depends on unknown future events, (Wolfers & Zitzewitz, 2004) with categories including sports, politics, elections, and more. The traded contracts are priced to reflect the conviction of participants regarding the likelihood of a certain event occurring. Buying contracts pertaining to a certain outcome drives its price higher to reflect the consensus beli

You've probably heard some version of this: "If you skip your $6 coffee every day and invest it instead, you'll be a millionaire by retirement." It's been said by financial advisors, self-help authors and that one person in every friend group who started a budget spreadsheet in January and won't stop talking about it. The concept even has a name: the Latte Factor, coined by author David Bach in the early 2000s. The idea is simple: small, mindless daily spending is silently de

A trend report on the intergenerational wealth transfer and the women who will be its beneficiaries. "The greatest destroyer of wealth isn’t tax or markets but capability asymmetry - when assets are passed on before financial understanding is there." - Susie Grehl. Commonwealth Bank Executive General Manager, Wealth and Private Understanding the intergenerational wealth transfer The number of High Net Worth Australian women has been growing for decades. In the past year alone

In today's world of ever-changing microtrends, “convenience culture” and instant gratification, consumer behaviour has become increasingly emotion-driven and shaped by the rapid cycles of social media trends. Once a product goes viral, it's instantly available at the tip of our fingers - we buy it, the hype goes up and then falls just as quickly. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle, fuelled by our fear of missing out (FOMO) and desire to stay socially visible. Think Labub

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