You might be forgiven for thinking the banks are starting to soften up their customer base for a post-election rate hike regardless of whether or not the Reserve Bank resumes its cycle of raising official rates.
Australian banks
Business As Usual: NAB sees future in US … China’s monthly check up … Murdoch buys more UK TV channels …
Inflation is tipped to rise in China, Murdoch’s BSkyB picks up some Virgin Media businesses,BP’s spending plenty on lobbying and other business news from around the globe.
Fee gouging: banks may take it up the class (action)
It has taken more than a decade but finally, a serious Australian legal action has been launched against 12 of Australia’s largest financial institutions for alleged fee gouging.
Feds tell banks ‘there are no guarantees’
The federal government is finally withdrawing its guarantees to banks and the state governments that allowed both groups to have a good recession. The measures kept our banks alive, but they gave the Big Four too much power.
Aussie bankers doing fee-nominally well
Executives at our biggest banks continue to enjoy a myriad benefits, the Big Four being among the most generous remunerators of executives in business. But lower-paid workers have not been so lucky.
Datapig: Banks just go on giving … less, that is
Reward points from the Big Four banks are costing us more every year, as the banks move the goalposts away as fast as we run towards them.
Wayne Swan approves Wespac takeover of St George
If the Government was worried about the impact on St George’s share price of a refusal, the decision could’ve been held off until equity markets had settled, writes Bernard Keane.
Local banking industry hardly a thriving free market
The fact that three of the major banks have increased rates over consecutive days simply goes to show that there is little if any real competition between them, writes Adam Schwab.
ANZ does a NAB on rates
The one thing ANZ may have done by choosing not to simply emulate NAB is to reduce the chances of another 25 basis point rise in official rates next month, writes Stephen Bartholomeusz.
NAB’s rate rise testament to banking oligopoly
The NAB’s decision to raise rates proves the argument that the financial sector is a highly regulated oligopoly, which, courtesy of the credit crunch, now faces little, if any competition in home lending, writes Adam Schwab.
Interest will rise as credit freezes over
Forget the election result: it will be great for the winning side. The cold reality on Monday morning will be interest rates and the gradual freezing of credit markets around the world, writes Glenn Dyer.
The Fed bails out the fat and the dodgy. And Wall Street
Excuse me for being cynical, but the US Fed’s 0.50% cut on the button overnight was nothing but a bail out of Wall Street urges, dodgy London and European financiers and fat complacent Australian banks, writes Glenn Dyer.
Foreigners grow, while big four banks stand still
There’s a big picture review of asset trends in banking and financial services in a paper by the Reserve Bank of Australia’s financial stability department published on Tuesday. And it’s not too flattering for Australian banks.
