Finance

On 19 August 2026, the United States Treasury's debt-to-the-penny ledger ticked past a figure that would have seemed almost theoretical a decade ago.

Titan Minerals (ASX: TTM) has published results from diamond drill hole CVDD26-199 at the Brecha-Comanche target in its Cerro Verde prospect, southern Ecuador. The hole returned 33.5 metres at 6.6 grams per tonne gold and 55.5 grams per tonne silver from 236.7 metres downhole.

Australian banks collected roughly $15 billion in fee revenue in the year to June 2025, a 3 per cent lift on the prior year, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia's latest annual survey of bank charges. On the big four's combined balance sheets, that number barely registers.

AUSTRAC says its Fintel Alliance has uncovered coordinated mortgage fraud across 10 major banks, with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in suspected fraudulent loans, most of them on Sydney properties.

Every payment terminal in Australia must stop adding a surcharge to eftpos, Mastercard and Visa transactions from 1 October 2026, and the Reserve Bank expects most small merchants to be better off.

BHP's FY2026 result was straightforward: underlying profit rose 30 per cent on the prior year, driven by a commodity mix that has shifted decisively.

Sydney-based fintech LoanOptions has formalised a partnership with Aussie, the retail broker brand operated by Lendi Group, extending its AI-powered asset finance capability to Aussie's national broker network.

Self-managed superannuation funds have been able to borrow under limited recourse borrowing arrangements, or LRBAs, to buy investment property since the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 first permitted the practice.