LeasePlan Australia will be placed on the sale block, the Financial Review reports today in its Street Talk column, with an auction tipped to commence in the coming two-to-three months. The European Banking Authority estimated there were one third more "high earners" in EU banks. The average ratio of variable to fixed remuneration for all high earners increased from 127 per cent in 2014 to 147 per cent in 2016. The cost to banks in New Zealand of conforming to the Reserve Bank's updated policy on outsourcing may be be NZ$550 million, or as high as NZ$870 million on the sector's own estimates. An earlier review of the current outsourcing policy found that the policy was being inconsistently applied. The RBNZ said the main aim of the revised policy is to ensure that New Zealand banks are able to continue operating in the event of the failure of a key service provider, especially when the service provider is a related party. Benefits from the revised policy the RBNZ put at ranging from NZ$1.9 billion to NZ$2.2 billion.