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After taking the software industry by storm, generative AI is now moving into a broad set of industries, including manufacturing, where it is helping manage unpredictability and support real-time decision-making. Gen AI’s ability to codify, automate, and distribute organizational expertise may eventually reshape work structures from the shop floor to the C-suite. Already some companies are using it to analyze the flood of information generated in factories and to predict problems, simulate complex scenarios, and optimize processes in real time. By working with a wide range of manufacturing industry data—from maintenance manuals and machine automation code to complex diagrams, 3D drawings, and process data—gen AI has the potential to establish new ways for people and machines to collaborate.

Government debt across the world is on course to hit 100% of global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2029, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund, the highest level since the aftermath of the second world war.

In its Fiscal Monitor report, the IMF said aggregate government debt had risen more rapidly than expected before the Covid pandemic, when policymakers stepped into protect citizens and bail out hard-hit businesses.

It urged governments to switch spending to growth-friendly areas such as infrastructure and education to help bolster the world economy and make debts more sustainable.

A 100% global debt-to-GDP ratio would be the highest since 1948, when the world’s large economies had been devastated by six years of war and the costs of rebuilding their ravaged countries.

The report named the UK as among the G20 countries whose ratio would peak above 100% of GDP on the IMF’s definition in the coming years – alongside France, Japan, Canada, China and the US.

The IMF said there were still upward pressures on spending in many countries – alongside a reluctance to impose tax rises on sceptical voters.

“Looming expenditures on defence, natural disasters, disruptive technologies, demographics, and development add to public spending demands. All these pressures and demands come together with sharp political red lines against tax increases and diminished public awareness of fiscal limits,” it said.

The IMF argued that emerging economies in particular could struggle to manage their debt burdens – even with much lower debt-to-GDP ratios than their developing country peers.

“Many emerging markets and low-income countries face tougher fiscal challenges, despite their relatively low debt,” it said. The IMF added that as many as 55 countries were experiencing debt distress, or at high risk of distress, despite having debt-to-GDP ratios below 60%.

Campaigners have called for the IMF to play a greater role in tackling unsustainable debt, arguing that the current debt restructuring process, known as the Common Framework, is too slow and cumbersome, as well as hard to qualify for.

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For the UK, the IMF forecasted total public debt would peak at 105.9% of GDP in 2029, before declining slightly, to 105.4% in 2030. After the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, changed her fiscal rules last year, she now targets a different definition of debt.

At a press briefing in Washington on Tuesday, where policymakers have gathered for the IMF’s annual meetings, its deputy director for monetary and capital markets, Athanasios Vamvakidis, said Britain was in the sights of bond market investors.

“Clearly markets are concerned about the UK economy, and we have seen more volatility in the UK compared to other advanced economies,” he said.

Westpac is tightening conditions on its savings account for younger customers as growing numbers of banks make it harder to earn advertised interest rates on their deposits.

The bank has joined smaller competitors in changing interest-related restrictions on some accounts – despite the Reserve Bank of Australia leaving interest rates on hold in September.

Conditional accounts, such as Westpac’s Life account, help banks access customers’ money and finance their lending business at a discount, according to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission analysis, because two in three savers miss out on their headline interest rate.

In November, Westpac will quadruple the number of transactions required to achieve the full 5% rate for 18 to 29-year-olds with Life accounts, from five a month to 20.

Customers who fail to deposit and increase their balance each month already see their interest slashed to just 0.25%. Savers who meet those conditions but make fewer than 20 payments from a linked spending account will see their rate drop to 4.25%.

The changes push customers who spend and save with different institutions to move all their banking to Westpac, according to Andrew Grant, associate professor at the University of Sydney business school.

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“The only way you’re going to get [the 5% rate] without making a conscious, costly, time-consuming effort [to] achieve that goal is by just using it as your main bank,” Grant said.

Westpac holds about a fifth of all Australian households’ deposits and about a fifth of home loans.

Locking in younger customers would deliver Westpac more future home loan business, while deterring savers from shopping around for better rates at other banks, reducing competition, Grant said.

Some customers, deterred by the difficulty of reorganising their finances, told Guardian Australian they planned to focus their spending on the bank.

“I could change my savings setup so I don’t use this Westpac account that has that condition, but I think it’s more likely I’d have to just be very vigilant,” one 21-year-old student, who did not wish to be identified, said.

The changes will also broaden account eligibility to include 18 to 34-year-olds. A Westpac spokesperson said the changes would ensure those who chose to spend and save with the bank were rewarded.

Restrictive conditions have become more common in Australia over the past 20 years and now apply to more than half of the savings options in online database Finder.

While Westpac is the only bank requiring 20 transactions, nine other banks now require savers to spend each month to get their full interest, according to the financial comparison site Mozo.

Bar chart showing how banks have slashed the base interest for savings

Over the past decade, banks have reduced the base interest component on conditional accounts while making their no-strings alternatives less attractive. While bonus accounts in September offered annual interest of 4.05%, as they did in 2013, regular accounts offered just 1.3%, compared to 2.35% in 2013, RBA data shows.

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Strings attached

Some banks have added requirements to accounts that once had no strings, such as ANZ’s Plus account and Ubank, NAB’s youth brand, which has regularly changed the conditions on its savings account.

From October, Ubank customers will receive no interest unless they deposit more than they withdraw each month. Customers had previously only been required to deposit $500, which they could withdraw as they wished.

Interest tiers have also been simplified to apply to balances up to $1m. The Ubank chief product officer, Andrew Morrison, said the changes made accounts easier to use and responded to customers’ desires to grow their savings.

Others have tightened existing restrictions, with AMP and Unity upping the amounts by which customers must grow their accounts in 2025, according to Canstar analysis.

Up, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s youth brand, began requiring that customers avoid withdrawing money or face slashed interest as part of a package of changes in September. The bank’s chief executive, Xavier Shay, said the changes were in response to customer demands.

Stricter requirements make it more costly for customers to access their money, according to Andrew Hingston, lecturer in personal finance at the University of New South Wales.

“Even withdrawing a small amount, like $200 to pay a bill … you’re forgoing quite a bit of interest to do that,” Hingston said.

“Not having a requirement to grow, that was a lot more flexible, a much better system.”