Good morning. Here’s what happened overnight and what you need to know today.
1.
No rush: The US and Iran are closing in on a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and see Tehran give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, though significant gaps remain, according to media reports citing senior unnamed US officials. President Donald Trump said on social media Sunday he had “informed my representatives not to rush into a deal,” a day after claiming a peace agreement had been “largely negotiated", walking back expectations of an imminent announcement. A senior Trump administration official told Reuters that Iran had agreed “in principle” to open the Strait of Hormuz and to dispose of its highly enriched uranium, though he said the question of how Iran would give up the uranium remained subject to “practical considerations.” But the broad agreement described by US officials did not address Iran’s missile stockpile nor contain an explicit ban on uranium enrichment, two of Trump’s most important goals, Bloomberg reported. A senior Iranian official told media that Iran had not committed to giving up its enriched uranium stockpile, directly contradicting US accounts. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said the draft deal could still collapse because the US is obstructing key clauses including Tehran’s demand for the release of frozen assets. (AP)(Reuters)(USA Today)(Bloomberg)(Capital Brief)
2.
Branch behaviour: Small lenders are accusing NAB, ANZ, Westpac and the Bank of Queensland of predatory pricing, claiming the big banks, having shuttered their own branches in rural and regional areas, are now threatening the viability of remaining branches and ATMs operated by smaller rivals. In a submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which is deliberating whether to authorise an industry trial of 20 fee-free ATMs outside Australia’s cities, the Regional Banking Investment Alliance said the proposal, coordinated by the Australian Banking Association, amounted to “a form of predatory pricing made possible by the collective financial capacity of Australia’s largest banks, authorised and coordinated under the imprimatur of the industry’s peak body.” “A smaller ADI cannot rationally respond,” the RBIA said. The Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie declined to sign on to the proposal, Capital Brief reported. The number of bank branches has halved nationally since 2011, with more than one-third of those closures in remote or regional areas, according to the RBA. The RBIA has instead proposed a rural banking levy, under which the nation’s largest nine banks would pay a $153 million annual charge to help prop up regional banking networks. The ACCC will publish its draft decision in July before making a final determination in September. (Capital Brief)
