ANZ’s plan to buy Suncorp’s bank has reignited concern about the power of the big four banks.
and hand money back to customers after it failed to raise the capital it needed to keep growing.
“We’ve had a few hiccups in the Australian market in the last few years. But this is still early days in how technology is reshaping the financial services landscape. And that’s why it’s so important that the government, I think, gets this right.
“Scale is important in being able to cope with the amount of regulation and the pace of change,” Hirst says.There has long been talk about a so-called “fifth pillar” emerging in banking that could gain this scale and compete more fiercely with the big four.It also emerged this week that the most obvious regional candidate to merge with Suncorp - Bendigo - had made overtures to Suncorp about a tie-up.
While all banks’ margins should benefit from rising interest rates, Morningstar analyst Nathan Zaia says big banks have the added advantage of having large pools of low-cost savings and transaction accounts, while they can also tap wholesale markets more cheaply.
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