The last decade or so has seen a rise in the Australian economy but it has also seen in a downfall in banking. Banking, as we know has become a necessity and loans are increasingly becoming a popular means of sufficing an immediate requirement. Banks in Australia have always been traditionally focused and some of the top banks focusing on fulfilling basic consumer requirements of include:

Adelaide Bank

This bank is a listed publicly and has its head office in South Australia. It provides different types of financial services through a detailed distribution network and by forming new national alliances.

AMP Banking Australia

AMP is one of the leading wealth management companies in Australia with an excess of AUD$84 billion in assets.

ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) Bank
ANZ Bank is considered as one of the biggest banking companies in Australia as well as New Zealand and was also ranked among the top 50 banks in the world. The world headquarters for ANZ is situated in Melbourne where it started off in the 1830s.

Bank of Queensland (BOQ)
Bank of Queensland is the second largest Queensland-based banking and financial institution and is listed among the top 5 biggest banks in Australia.

BankSA
It was formerly called the Bank of South Australia and today it is one of the largest financial institutions in South Australia and is also the main provider of personal finance, housing and rural banking in the State. Today BankSA is owned by St George Bank.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is one of leading banking and financial institutions, which has positioned itself for future growth and is aiming to make banking accessible to all Australians.

Macquarie Bank Limited
The Macquarie Bank offers different types of investment banking opportunities and also caters to selected retail financial service markets as well as commercial banking in Australia.

National Australia Bank
The National Australia Bank is an internationally acclaimed financial services group that has been providing comprehensive range of financial services in Australia as well as 15 other countries.

RBA - Reserve Bank of Australia
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is the central bank and its primary responsibility is the monetary policy. Some of the key roles of the RBA include maintaining the stability of the financial system and enhancing the efficiency and safety of the Australian payments system.

These are some of the most popular banking institutions in Australia. Off late, it has been noticed by various research groups that Banks are falling way behind in their promises to upkeep customer satisfaction and to consistently thrive to offer competitive interest rates on their loans. As a result, more and more people are turning towards newer and non-traditional forms of accessing capital such as non-bank lenders and now social lending or peer to peer lending networks.

This phenomenon can be disastrous for banks as has been experienced by banks in the UK following the launch of Zopa. Zopa is considered a pioneer in peer to peer lending and anyone can take an online loan from the Zopa borrowing platform. The salient point is that the borrower can set his or her repayment amount with a maximum interest rate. The interest rate is definitely lower than what banks are offering and hence more people are finding it advantageous from their point of view.

Social lending has landed on the Australian shores with Lending Hub http://www.lendinghub.com.au now being seen in the same light as Zopa and Prosper. Of course the funding vehicle is still under development but one can safely predict that the social lending networks will start to take lending market share from the banks. Another aspect that has pushed social lending ahead is the fact that it is more community oriented, which banks are not (although the banks like to portray themselves as being people and community focused they have spent the last 4-5 years closing branches and making banking highly automated and less consumer focused).

According to a recent study in Britain, it has been found that 74% of people feel a positive attitude towards borrowing from a social lending community as opposed to borrowing from their own high street banks. Almost 49% people feel that the banks have not been able to keep their promise of offering customer satisfaction. Another 81% believe that the banks are self-interested while a good 76% believe that they are greedy.

All in all these features make banking institutions highly unpopular especially now in the light of the unprecedented growth of social lending communities and peer to peer lending solutions.

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They say everything comes big in the Lone Star State- the longhorned bovines, cowboy boots, prairies, steaks, cars, and piles of money. Texas unclaimed money that is. Texas comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has almost $2 billion dollars of unclaimed cash to give-away to her state s residents. Well, it s not so much giving-away as giving-back since the lost cash was already theirs to begin with. Funny thing is most of the 200,000 people owed Texas unclaimed properties don t even know they have money coming to them.

People tend to forget to collect salary or insurance checks when they get new jobs or move to a new house. They also forget to leave behind forwarding addresses when they move and this is one of the main causes for lost checks. When business and financial establishments can t find the owners of these lost financial assets for 5 years (in Texas), they are turned over to the state as dictated by Texas Unclaimed Property Law which follows the country s escheat laws. The unclaimed funds stay with Texas state Comptroller s office until their owners come to claim them.

Unclaimed property in Texas covers anything from forgotten bank accounts, savings accounts, stock and cash dividends, uncollected insurance benefits and money orders to gift certificates, un-cashed checks and contents of safety deposit boxes which have been considered abandoned by their owners. The latter is the only example of tangible assets under the Texas Unclaimed Property Law and these are auctioned-off in dBay after 2 years of being turned-over to the State Comptroller s office. So if you re looking for family heirlooms or antiques that your Texan relatives may have lost over the years, it s best to go check-out eBay.

George Tamayo, manager of the unclaimed funds division in Texas says “From our experience, we determined we were getting the most bang for our buck on eBay.” to which he adds “It s more cost-effective, because we are able to do the auctions ourselves.” His state was one of the first to make use of the internet auction site early in 2002, switching from the traditional method of disposing of the abandoned property through live auctions. According to Jackie Schroeter, safe deposit box manager for Texas, posting on eBay saves her office time and effort. With the live auctions, the Unclaimed Property office would have to shut down to coordinate them due to lack in manpower. It just takes a few clicks with a computer mouse now.

The proceeds from these auctions go back to the Texas unclaimed property fund where they still can be claimed by their rightful owners at any time. “The Unclaimed Property List contains the names of Texans with property valued at $100 or more that was reported to the state within the last year.”, says Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn who also announced in a recent report, “Since I took office, I have returned more than $532 million in unclaimed property to its original owners,”

This is good news indeed for residents of the Lone Star State, but don t think the Comptroller is going to come to your front door and deliver your lost funds to you. Unless you have no immediate need for extra bucks in your pocket, you should search for unclaimed money in Texas or other states now!

Unclaimed money and property expert Russ Johnson has been assisting Americans in finding their unclaimed money online since 1997. His site is http://www.unclaimedmoney.net which is updated regularly and offers guaranteed official searches for Texas unclaimed money and missing money across the country.

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