The bank competition myth
Australian banks are upset. Their $30 billion per year gravy train of profits from the Australian people is finally being slowed down. A levy on bank liabilities of 0.06% annually was announced as part of the 2017 Federal government budget, and is expected to raise about $1.5 billion per year, or 5% of bank profits. To be clear, the banking system is a regulated cartel. Its primary function is to provide a public good in the form of the money supply of the country. As such, we would expect it to be uncompetitive, and use tight regulatory controls to ensure that the privileged position of private banks is not being abused. In my book, Game of Mates , I explain that the result of this uncompetitiveness and lack of adequate regulation in Australia is that over half of the banks' profits can be considered economic rents , which could be taken back with better regulation and shared with the public at large. I want to use this blog post to explain in detail the underlying administr