Briefs: McEwan to head RBS, new MFAA president, Indonesia caps foreign ownership, Wright Express loo
The Royal Bank of Scotland will appoint former CBA executive Ross McEwan as chief executive, the Financial Times reports. McEwan was head of retail banking at CBA and holds the same job as RBS, which he joined last year. The chief executive of mortgage aggregator Vow Financial, Tim Brown, has been elected president of the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia. Brown is a 30-year industry veteran who has worked at Macquarie Bank, LJ Hooker, Suncorp and Aussie Home Loans. Indonesia's central bank has put a 40 per cent cap on foreign ownership of its banks, a decision that has put an end to a bid by Singapore's DBS to buy a controlling stake in PT Bank Danamon. The global payment processing company, Wright Express, has plans to issue more virtual credit cards in Australia "in the pipeline", the group's chief executive, Michael Dubyak, told an investor call on Wednesday night. Wright signed its first deal with Wotif earlier this year. Westpac's internet banking system suffered a breakdown yesterday that lasted most of the day. The bank directed customers to its call centre. It did not gve an explanation for the outage.