Just seven months after she was appointed head of the merged Mortgage Choice and Smartline mortgage broking businesses, following REA Group’s takeover of Mortgage Choice, Susan Mitchell has announced that she will step down at the end of this month. Mitchell has been at Mortgage Choice for 13 years and was appointed chief executive in 2018. Anthony Waldron, who has been advising REA on its financial services business, will act as interim head of broking. Receivables management company Credit Clear has completed its takeover of debt recovery company ARMA Group Holdings and the board has opted for ARMA chief executive Andrew Smith to lead the merged group. Credit Clear CEO David Hentschke will take up the role of managing director international and technology. The decision reflects the fact that ARMA has a solid earnings track record, while Credit Clear, which was launched in 2015, is still in loss-making start-up mode with a narrow revenue base. Commonwealth Bank said it will join the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and aims to play an active role in its activities. The NZBA is a sub-group pf the UN-backed Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, whose chair Mark Carnet told the COP26 conference its goal is to transform the global financial system in order to finance investment in a net zero economy. When Carney presented in Glasgow, GFANZ and NZBA only had two Australian members – ANZ and Macquarie Group. Westpac has put up fixed mortgage rates for the second time this year. Canstar reported that the bank increased rates across the range by between 10 and 20 basis points. It is now selling two, three, four and five-year mortgages with rates above 4 per cent. The ASX's diversified business model, technology upgrades and strong market activities have delivered a record first half result: net profit was up 3.5 per cent, rising by A$8.5 million to $250.3 million; revenue increased $30.9 million on the same period last year to $501.4 million and EBIT was up $19.3 million - a 6 per cent increase – to $338.4 million. "The total amount of capital raised grew significantly to a record $90.3 billion, with both a strong primary and secondary market. We also saw elevated listings activity with 150 new listings in the period, the highest number since 1H08," ASX managing director and CEO Dominic Stevens told investors and analysts. Stevens also announced that he intends to retire later this year. The RBNZ would lose its dual mandate if the main opposition National Party takes the next election, and would no longer need to focus on supporting maximum sustainable employment alongside achieving price stability. National leader Christopher Luxon told Bloomberg, if elected he would restore the Reserve Bank’s pre-2019 sole focus on inflation. He would also remove the need for the RBNZ to take house prices into account when setting monetary policy. “I’m not supportive of the dual mandate, I’d move it back to price stability,” Luxon said. “There’s been too much mission creep. You’ve got to be ruthlessly focused on price stability, that’s