Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Former Reserve Bank and Treasury chiefs have gone on to run Westpac, the National Australia Bank, the ANZ, and Macquarie Bank. It makes regulating those banks hard.
The Australian Banking Association says ‘nearly 80% of bank profits go straight back to shareholders’, the majority of whom are ‘everyday Australians’. Is that right?
The major banks have tried to downplay their role in manipulating the BBSW interest rate benchmark. But this is not the first instance of bad behaviour.
The banks could have used their collective bargaining power not only against Apple for Apple Pay but also stall the adoption of mobile payments in Australia.
Members of House Standing Committee on Economics should be asking the directors of Australia’s Big Four banks (not the CEOs) different questions, if they really want the right answers.
Business Briefing: fixing culture in banking and finance
The Conversation19,7 MB(download)
"Banking culture" has drawn a lot of scrutiny this year, after several high-profile scandals. But Professor Paul Kofman says there isn't much evidence for how to intervene if there's a problem.
An ASIC report detailing how financial advice was paid for but not given by Australia’s big four banks exposes a culture problem that the government needs to deal with.
ASIC has been too slow to prosecute those accused of rigging the bank bill swap rate so it doesn’t matter if the government makes the penalties harsher for those found guilty.
The politics that Malcolm Turnbull and the big banks support is one in which people are robbed of their citizenship and reduced to economic functionaries.