Greens Adam Bandt will call for a "too big to fail" levy to be imposed on the big four banks to increase competition in the industry, the
Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Bandt, who speaks for the Greens in parliament on banking policy, will make the call in a speech to be made to an Australian Bankers Association forum on regulation in Sydney this morning.
Implicit government support of the big banks through discounted access to the wholesale funding guarantee scheme, combined with the four pillars policy, has reinforced the dominance of the big four lenders, the SMH reports, and citing an advance copy of Bandt's speech.
"It is time to ask whether we in fact have an implicit too-big-to-fail policy in Australia," Bandt says.
"And if that is the case, isn't it time the financial beneficiaries of this policy be asked to provide something in return?"
Current regulatory debates focus on the level of a capital surcharge, if any, relevant to "systemically important financial institutions", or SIFIs.
The SIFI proposal was originally expected to apply to only the largest European and US-based global banks, though under some versions of the policy canvassed in international debates a capital surcharge may also apply to the major banks in Australia.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority is yet to make its view known on this topic, however.