Being in the business of business lending and thus being in a position to consolidate lending opportunities and to charge a higher margin for it appears to be a satisfactory position for members of Australia's banking oligopoly.Two banks - NAB and ANZ - on Friday published highlights of their first quarter (or December 2008) quarter profits, with NAB's the more positive of the two but both, in context, incorporating some favourable messages over the pricing power of each bank.NAB said its first quarter cash earnings were around $1.1 billion and "consistent with the previous corresponding period".In the first half of 2008 NAB messed around with a couple of controversial provisions to inflate earnings during that period (including one to cover costs for "new business initiatives"), and while NAB may still draw upon those provisions for some costs, one take away might be that NAB is in fact suggesting that profit increased in the most recent quarter, even after allowing for loan losses.ANZ on Friday, in an explanation extracted by the Australian Securities Exchange in response to a query over its falling share price, said that "operating profit before credit provisions and credit risk on derivatives" for the six months to March 2009 was "expected to be modestly higher" than in the same period in 2008.After taking into account current estimates of credit provisions ANZ said its profit after provisions was likely to be more than 15 per cent lower in the first half of last year.ANZ reported a statutory net profit of $1.96 billion in the March 2008 half year, a cash net profit of $1.67 billion and a cash profit excluding "non-core" items of $1.94 billion. CBA said last week that it expected to report a cash net profit of about $2 billion, which is down 16 per cent on the December 2007 half year but, most importantly, 20 per cent more than CBA's estimate of the "market consensus" for its earnings. CBA will publish its results on Wednesday.The Reserve Bank of Australia on Friday provided an assessment of the pricing power - especially as it affects business borrowers - in the quarterly statement on monetary policy.The RBA estimates show that small business received the benefit of 180 basis points out of a 300 bps cut in the cash rate since October 2008. Large business, where rates tend to be tied to the bank bill rate, may have fared better, with actual rates paid falling by more than the cut in the cash rate in some instances, though this analysis may not allow for additional risk regrading as banks decide certain customers are at increased risk of failing, thanks to the increasingly grim outlook for demand and growth.And indeed the commentary in the bulletin confirms that "liaison indicates that some borrowers have recently experienced sizeable increases in risk margins".Ignoring increases in risk margins the RBA estimated the average interest rate on all outstanding business loans fell by 230 basis points since the start of the easing cycle to 6.50