Briefs: iSelect dives, NAB wallet, HBSC aims for middle and more

Shares in the financial comparison website iSelect fell 16 per cent on the company's first day of trading on the Australian Securities Exchange. Sold in the initial public offer at A$1.85, the shares closed at $1.56. Eleven per cent of the shares were traded yesterday.

AMP said it produced "stronger operating results" at AMP Bank during the June 2013 quarter in a trading update released yesterday. AMP did not elaborate.

Tony Cripps,the new chief executive of HSBC Bank Australia, told the Financial Review that the local retail banking market lacked competition, though in corporate banking competition was more vigorous. "If you look at the retail space, the major banks hold about 90per cent of the mortgage market, so there's obviously not much competition there," Cripps told the AFR. "In the corporate market, there is a lot more competition because there's international banks." HSBC is focusing on three core segments in Australia: mass affluent retail, corporate and institutional. The three market segments each make up about one-third of its local business.

National Australia Bank may have a digital wallet product ready for market in a month, the Financial Review reported. It will trial MasterCard's MasterPass system and Visa's V.me digital wallets, NAB's executive general manager of digital and direct banking, Antony Cahill, said. Cahill said that with the NAB digital wallet "you will also be able to upload cards that you have from other banks and issuers and vice versa."

Commonwealth Bank will sell one of its financial planning businesses, the Financial Review reported in its Street Talk column. Whittaker Macnaught will be sold to Eureka Financial Group and MSI Taylor.

Citi said yesterday that it has appointed Alan Machet as the head of its Australian cards business. Machet joins Citi from Macquarie Bank, where he was most recently a divisional director and led the direct distribution of retail financial services for Macquarie's Private Wealth division. He previously worked in the cards business of Westpac.

The Bank for International Settlements says it has appointed RBA assistant governor Guy Debelle as chairman of its markets committee. The markets committee "is a forum for senior central bank officials to jointly monitor developments in financial markets and assess their implications for the market operations of central banks," the BIS said.

The New Zealand Export Credit Office says Chris Chapman is to take over as manager, replacing Carmen Moana. Chapman was head of business origination.

Retail funds run by churches are to have more time to adapt to a prohibition on taking on any more at-call funds. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority says it will delay the commencement of any changes until October 2013. Existing accounts at June 30, 2013, may continue to be operated at call until June 30, 2014.

ANZ may have made up ground in some key business segments, the Business Financial Services Monitor, from DBM Consultants, suggests. ON DBM's ranking (out of 10), ANZ made the biggest gain over 12 months (a rise of 0.2 points), while the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac improved by 0.1, points, and NAB remained static. Dhruba Gupta, managing director of DBM, said in a commentary that "it seems that ANZ's out-of-cycle rises are no longer affecting its ratings so negatively."

The closing date for the social benefit bond being issued by The Benevolent Society is August 26 and not July 15 as reported yesterday. TBS is seeking to raise A$10 million.