Hello team.

1. Ah, the end of the golden age of mortgage deferrals. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australia’s biggest banks will stop giving automatic mortgage holidays to home owners, and are putting pressure on the tens of thousands of people who are not currently paying back their mortgages. “To meet regulatory guidance, we will shortly be removing repayment pauses as an option for COVID-19 relief,” a note from NAB to mortgage brokers reads.

2. Still a lot of zeroes on the COVID front. Victoria has reported no new locally acquired cases this morning. NSW and Queensland reported zero local cases yesterday. Meanwhile, Tennis Australia is disputing a statement from Victoria health officials that two tennis players tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Melbourne.

3. The head of Australia’s peak tourism industry body has called for an extension to the JobKeeper subsidy to counteract the continuing financial strain caused by international and domestic border closures. Tourism and Transport Forum Chief Executive Margy Osmond said Australia “won’t have much of a tourism industry left” without renewed support. The federal government is yet to signal any further JobKeeper extensions, saying it was always intended to be a temporary countermeasure to coronavirus shutdowns.

4. Australia welcomed 31,500 arrivals from overseas in December 2020, marking an 18% jump from the previous month. But reduced caps on international arrivals, kickstarted by fears over a highly infectious new strain of coronavirus, could impact the upward trend. People leaving Australia on temporary student visas comprised nearly one in five departures in December.

5. A new breed of digital payday lenders are popping up in Australia, with the lending niche growing five times larger in just 12 months. Joining an array of app-based competitors, the Commonwealth Bank is offering its own pay advance feature to customers. Financial commentators, however, are urging people to do their homework before borrowing, with some warning that this new generation operate much like the bad old players with a new lick of paint.

6. US trade representatives say Australia’s draft media bargaining code is “fundamentally unbalanced”, with consequences that could “significantly harm Australian consumers”, and are urging the government to scrap it. Separately, the US Chamber of Commerce states the current proposal “explicitly targets and discriminates against US companies”. The draft proposal would allow news publishers to seek remuneration from Facebook and Google for hosting their content, with unresolved discussions heading to mandatory arbitration.

7. The Senate’s media diversity inquiry, spurred by Kevin Rudd’s anti-News Corp crusade, has received submissions from 50 individuals, publishers and organisations so far. Here are 5 interesting tidbits, including submissions from Facebook, News Corp, and regional media. Despite Rudd’s intention to investigate the impact of News, submissions address everything from the decline of regional media to a lack of cultural diversity in Australian news rooms.

8. More than $24 billion was spent on Australian credit cards over the Christmas period, according to RBA forecasts. Although lower than last year, the figure remains substantial, amounting to $1,748 per card, Finder analysis found. It marks a return toward an upward trend, with spending growing sharply during the four weeks from Christmas.

9. US president-elect Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated Wednesday, meaning Tuesday is President Donald Trump’s last full day in the White House. Trump has spent the last days of his presidency hidden from public view and with his approval ratings the lowest they have ever been. Trump is not planning to attend Biden’s inauguration and instead seems poised to try to steal focus from the event, including by flying out early. He’s just posted his farewell address, too:

10. Four hundred thousand people in the US have died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, according to trackers from NBC News and Worldometer. The news comes as the US struggles to come anywhere near the vaccination targets set by the federal government before the approval of the Pfizer vaccine in December 2020. Experts have blamed the poor performance on a lack of federal response, underfunded state medical departments, and mixed messaging.

BONUS ITEM

Weirdly satisfying…

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.