From the AFR, Ex-Goldman chairman Alastair Walton:
…argued that the banking oligopoly allowed the major lenders to focus on home lending and neglect financing innovative businesses critical for future prosperity.
…“Would Australia as a whole be better off with eight to ten banks, each . . . rated A (like almost every other bank in the OECD) and primarily rely on domestic deposits to fund their lending activities….Or continue ad infinitum with four ‘too big to fail’ banks each of which [is] rated AA-, and utilise the sovereign support of the Australian government (either implicitly or explicitly with a guarantee fee) to access high levels of low cost offshore funding to support their domestic lending activities.”
…Helped by their systemic importance, banks had effectively “captured” the regulators, which needed banks to remain profitable so they could access funding, Mr Walton said.
Obviously spot on, equally obviously never going to happen.
