•    ASIC has banned Brisbane financial adviser Christopher Ramsay from providing financial services for five years after finding he advised clients to switch their superannuation and insurance products without making appropriate inquiries to assess whether their existing products met their needs. ASIC also found Mr Ramsay provided misleading information on fees and insurance to support his recommendations for clients to switch products, and failed to tell clients he was an employee representative of Westpac; or an authorised representative of GWM Adviser Services Limited (a NAB subsidiary). As a consequence of Ramsay's failings, clients paid more for some products than they had previously paid and had understood they would pay; or else their superannuation savings were reduced.•    ANZ has made "a strategic investment and partnership" with local start-up Data Republic to share data with trusted third parties "in a safe and secure environment that provides the highest levels of governance," said ANZ chief data officer Emma Gray. "This partnership ... will ultimately position ANZ to overcome many of the challenges and potential risks associated with open data, data sharing and the Federal Government's recently announced Open Banking reforms." ANZ will start using the Data Republic platform from late March.•    Diversified wealth management firm Yellow Brick Road has seen an 85 per cent increase in profitability. Net profit before tax increased to A$0.53 million (H1 FY17: $0.29m). This is the company's third successive profitable half, which it said was due to "a focused and disciplined business approach and strong cost control." Higher revenue (up by five per cent to $97 million) and lower costs (down by four per cent), are behind the improved result.  The YBR branch network has been rationalised to create a higher quality network. As a result, there has been a reduction in branch network numbers and a related decline in lending and wealth volumes. This contributed to a short-term decline in origination revenue; lending down six per cent, and wealth down 12 per cent.•    Banking and wealth management group MyState Limited last week announced a first half 2017/18 net profit after tax of A$15.8 million, a four per cent increase on the previous corresponding period. Total revenue was $64.0 million, up 3.6 per cent, while net profit before tax was $22.6 million, up 7.7 per cent. Net interest margin was at 1.94 per cent and net interest income grew by 6.8 per cent. Managing director and CEO, Melos Sulicich, attributed the solid growth in profit and earnings to the group's strategy and technology transformation, which he said enabled MyState to provide better services to more customers. The loan book increased to $4.3 billion, up 4.5 per cent since December 2016. Retail deposits provide more than two-thirds of the group's funding base (67.3 per cent).•    The trial has begun in Auckland of a former BNZ employee accused by New Zealand's Serious Fraud Office of mortgage fraud. Former BNZ employee, Zongliang (Charly) Jiang, and lawyer Gang (Richard) Chen and developer's wife Kang (Jenny) Xu, are accused of using fraudulent documents