Commonwealth Bank has cut 20 jobs in its global markets division in the face of difficult institutional trading conditions, The Australian reports. This is a reduction in the global markets staffing levels of about five per cent. The cuts were confirmed by a bank spokesperson. Only 10.8 per cent of workers in the finance industry are members of a trade union relevant to their main job, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. The ABS put union membership at 23,000 out of 213,000 employees overall. For the more broadly defined financial and insurance services sector the ABA put union membership at seven per cent. Pepper Group has launched an issue of non-conforming residential mortgage-backed securities seeking A$300 million of funding. Pepper Residential Securities Trust No.15 is backed by a portfolio of mortgages that includes substantial portion of loans to borrowers with impaired credit histories (41 per cent) or made on a low doc basis (37.3 per cent). ANZ has spent the past two years on a big data project that trawls through customer transactions to identify sales opportunities, itnews reports. ANZ executive Sam Kline told an IBM customer forum that the bank would monitor accounts for airline ticket purchases, for example, and then send communications about the location of overseas ATMs or provide advice on travel payment options. Esanda will compensate more than 70 borrowers after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found that brokers employed by Get Approved Finance secured car finance approvals for consumers who did not meet Esanda's criteria. The broker also sold add-on products, such as insurance, without borrowers' knowledge or consent. The total value of the loans was more than A$1.38 million. Earlier this month ANZ announced that it had sold the Esanda car finance business to Macquarie Group.