Effect of globalisation on Australia's financial system

Australia's Financial System

One of the primary forces driving the globalization of Australia's financial system has been the rapid technological change that has swept the world. The Internet has enabled businesses to connect with one another and with consumers with a point and click of the mouse. Additionally, financial markets are no longer confined to real time trading, or affected primarily by national developments. Enterprise has become a truly global phenomenon. However, technology alone did not cause the dramatic improvement in Australia's economy from the 1980s onward. Rather, the twin, driving forces of technological change and deregulation were required to create an Australian economy that was deeply enmeshed within the world community (Kellerman 2011). Deregulation fueled the nation's current commodity boom, creating an export-driven economy that was so strong it was relatively insulated from some of the problems spawned by globalization, including the 2008 credit crisis.

Technology

Improved technology in the financial industry and the world's communication systems overall have facilitated access to both goods and services and financial instruments. As the costs of technology have dropped, more and more businesses have used it to promote their products as well as make use of aspects of the financial industry to which they would not have had access before. Electronic transactions have made borrowing, spending, and trading much easier and faster -- and also radically destabilized the markets because of the subsequent increased volatility. Technology has reduced cost and entry barriers and increased access to information, but it has also given other entities the ability to shield their transactions. Theoretically, technology should make it easier to calculate risk, but it can also make it easier to conceal risk. (Financial system, 2010, Australian Treasury).

Both businesses and households have increased their exploration of new financial instruments. The expansion of enterprise and the availability of goods and services have increased the desire of households to borrow as well as expand their financial asset holdings, given the availability of new investments available (Financial system, 2010, Australian Treasury). Increased wealth and increased speed of economic transactions have facilitated the pace of trade.

The export-driven economy

Australia has been said to be one of the economies to have most benefited from globalization because of the expanded access to developing markets in India and China, which the developed Pacific Rim nation of Australia has been uniquely positioned to exploit. The price of exports relative to imports has "improved by 42% since 2004" (Everybody needs good neighbors, 2011, The Economist). At its height, the Australian economy was operating at virtually full employment, the government was worried about inflation and encouraging consumers to save money, and its central bank was pursuing a tight money policy. While there have been some conflicts with major trading partners, such as a recent dispute with Indonesia regarding exporting Australian beef to that nation, overall Australia's strength as an exporting power has been robust and welcomed by much of the developing world (A row over cows, 2010, The Economist).

The recent credit crisis understandably caused great anxiety in Australia, given the fact that an export-driven nation is likely to be disproportionately affected by a global financial incident. As a result the Australian government launched a stimulus package. Australia, in contrast to other developed world nations in Europe and the U.S. "increased its production of goods and services in the first few months of 2009…Alone among the developed nations that belong to G-20, it was not being sucked into a world recession" (Stutchbury 2010). Its currency even reached parity with the U.S.

One unique facet of Australia's economy not present in the other developed nation that were hard-hit by the credit crisis is the expansion of its mining sector. In the years before the credit crisis "Australian iron ore was stoking the very Chinese industrialization that in turn was recycling a massive export surplus into excess U.S. consumption, driving up Washington's budget deficits, and inflating an American housing bubble that would almost bring down the global financial system" (Stutchbury 2010:4). This sustained demand for its commodities and mining products. Technology and globalization which has spread to the developing world was strong enough to keep the Australian economic 'miracle' afloat (PNC, 2011, Australia Banking and Finance).

Deregulation