The 2014 Financial Services Forum has come and gone, with around 400 delegates taking part.
President Daniel Smith welcomed delegates and introduced Keynote Speaker Glenn McGrath. Glenn delivered an inspirational presentation on leadership in sport and through the McGrath Foundation. He also shared many personal memories and fascinating cricket stories.
Chris Cuffe recounted his journey up until now, discovering that there are three stages in life – learning, earning and returning (giving back). Discussing leadership he commented that there are also three types of people – those who wonder what happens, those who watch what happens and those who make things happen. Which one are you? According to Chris, only you can be the judge of your own success.
Plenary 2 featured Carol Austin, Deborah Ralston and Susan Thorp who focused on the economic and investment environment. Carol touched on when analysing the economy, she considers government policy, the commitment to it and the feasibility. Deborah spoke about the retirement trilemma and the need to manage good returns, protection from risk and access to capital. Susan capped the session off with the impact on the individual and what needs to be done to communicate effectively with pre and post-retirees.
Day One concurrent sessions focused on the latest developments in superannuation and investments, including solving the post-retirement challenge, opportunities for Australia in the ‘Asian Century’ and what proved to be a fascinating debate on retail versus industry funds. Insurance was also well represented with topics covering risk culture, capital management and some well-timed reflection on the recent issues the industry has been facing and an exploration of the potential paths forwards.
The presenters of the final session – Plenary 3 – discussed one of the nation’s hot topics, the Financial System Inquiry. Ian Harper, Rob Whelan, Steven Münchenberg and John Brogden shared their individual views on how the Government should position the financial system ‘to best meet Australia’s evolving needs and support Australian growth’
Day One concluded with a Cocktail Party at the conference foyer. It was a great evening of conversation and networking amongst colleagues and friends.
Day Two began with Plenary 4 on enterprise risk management and saw delegates go from 30,000 feet, to the 35th floor to three feet under with speakers Mark Thorpe, Jacqui Colwell and David Parsons. Mark talked about establishing risk appetite and risk culture, while Jacqui touched on the changing risk landscape and how to avoid ‘banking bad’. David capped off the session on emergency management.
There were some highly informative and insightful concurrent sessions on the emerging fields of risk management and big data. Sessions covered how organisations are utilising the latest approaches to better understand their customers and develop innovative business models. Sovereign risk, operational risk modelling and the lessons claims management teams should take from social workers were also covered.
The final Plenary focused on innovation and data analytics. Tim Trumper, Ramneek Gupta, Duncan West and Dr Norman Swan discussed how they were using new innovative ideas and data analytics in their organisations.
Our delegates were very generous and helped raise $2050 for the McGrath Foundation. This money will help place a McGrath Breast Care Nurse in a local community.
Congratulations to Richard Land, Early Bird registration prize winner and to our Twitter competition prize winners, Jennifer Lang and Trang Duncanson.
All papers, presentations, audio and video recordings are now available.
Thanks to the Organising Committee, Naomi Edwards(facilitator), the presenters, the chairs, the delegates and the Institute’s Events team for their contribution to a successful Forum. Thank you also to our sponsors and supporting partners.