Australia's corporates are starting to count the cost of the war in the Middle East, with profit warnings from two top companies and a crash in business sentiment pointing to ‌pain from rising prices, raising the risk of stagflation, Reuters reported. The country's top airline Qantas Airways and second largest lender ‌Westpac Banking Corp flagged their earnings could be hurt by soaring fuel prices and the impact on customers, as feared by the country's central bank.

Australia's Federal Court has ordered Oztures Trading Pty Ltd, trading as Binance Australia Derivatives, to pay an AUD $10 million (about $6.9 million USD) penalty after the exchange admitted to exposing 524 retail investors to high-risk crypto derivative products without required consumer protections, Decrypt.com reported.

The Reserve Bank of Australia's latest Financial Stability Review indicates that total company insolvencies as a share of operating companies have stabilised over the past year, returning to their long-run averages, AccountingTimes.com.au reported. The RBA report said that easing cash flow pressures and recovering domestic demand have supported company viability. It noted that insolvencies saw a sharp increase in the years following the pandemic due to a catch-up effect from the exceptionally low number of insolvencies during the COVID-19 period, when temporary support measures were in place.

Australia and the European Union signed a free trade agreement on Tuesday after eight years of negotiations, removing tariffs on almost all goods and potentially easing EU access to Australian critical minerals, Reuters reported. However, some Australian agricultural exports, including beef and ‌sheep meat, will face quotas. Australian farmers criticised the pact for offering what they called "subpar" access to the bloc, while French farmers argued the ‌quotas were too generous. The deal follows intensified talks amid sharply higher U.S.

Australia’s central bank raised interest rates on Tuesday as the conflict in Iran worsened existing concerns around an acceleration in inflation and the country’s reliance on oil imports, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Reserve Bank of Australia increased the official cash rate to 4.10% from 3.85%. That marked the second increase this year and investor bets have shifted toward another rate rise in May as officials battle to rein in price pressures.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is likely to raise interest rates this week to combat a worsening inflation outlook but it needs to dispense with vague messaging and signal forcefully that it won’t tolerate inflation above its target, the Wall Street Journal reported. “The RBA needs to stop equivocating on how long it is going to take to get inflation back to target,” John Simon, a former head of economic analysis at the central bank, said in an interview.