Metropolitan newspapers this morning are pretty earnest on big picture bank issues:
- The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australia Post "craves to become a fifth force in banking." The SMH reported that APRA rejected Post's overtures and that in any event the Australian government refused to commit the capital required to advance the project.
- The SMH also recounts one episode in the funding history from the height of the financial crisis in October 2008 that highlighted that "National Australia Bank had also run into difficulties, unable to secure billions of dollars of short-term funding." The columnist offered this incident as one rationale for the rush to introduce the government guarantee on term borrowings at the time (though there were many other reasons).
- On a contemporary note The Australian reported that the Council of Financial Regulators Council has assured the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, that banks have sufficient funding to withstand at least a six-month freeze on access to global markets and that there is additional capacity to obtain funding from the Reserve Bank should a global financial breakdown last longer. The Council also advised Swan that it was confident the banks' capital position is strong enough to withstand any foreseeable deterioration in bad debts.
- The Financial Review published the first instalment on what promise to be windy series on the "future of financial services" that quotes a number of bank chief executives. Phil Chronican, chief executive of ANZ in Australia, said that "it's hard to see bank ROES getting back into the 20 per cent range." There is also a chorus of grumbles over the expanding regulatory burden.