Banks remain protected species

It will be interesting to see if the release of the report has any damaging effects at all. Perhaps tighter controls on lending will be a good thing if it means that people do not extend themselves beyond their capacity to repay debt with all the stresses that come with that. Tighter controls on the issuing of multiple bank cards would also be a good thing to lift people out of debt. Falling house prices should not cause stress to those who own their homes - after all, they are currently falling from an unrealistic and false high. Any effect is likely to be temporary and house values will rise again. Good financial managers will temporarily invest in other shares or commodities until the smoke clears and superannuants will continue to earn on their investments. I just hope the banking administrators, who will no doubt attempt to maintain profit and hence share value, do so by reducing the obscene salaries and bonuses of senior clerks and not by reducing services to customers and the numbers of employed staff at the lower levels of the banking tree. I am not holding my breath though - the mind-numbing greed and lack of insight of the bankers is unlikely to change and perhaps is the one thing that should be forced to change

Like many Bank customers, my family is beholden to one of the big banks we hold our mortgage with. However I have decided to move my business from the Bank to a Credit Union as soon as possible. I have been a member of a Credit Union with for 40+ years. However since becoming a member, my Credit Union itself become a Bank!! Where do we turn now? Sadly John, I have to completely agree with you that both sides of politics are too scared to take on the big banks. If I were to engage in any of the conduct they engaged in, I would find my self doing a stretch in goal . My hope(clutching at straws) is that those responsible will have the full force of the law thrown at them and banned for life! Second, the big banks should be broken up or demerged. Third the so called financial advisors should all find more productive employment, we don't need them or the so called mortgage brokers!

An interesting perspective John. There was a time when the banks encouraged savings, gave piggy banks to kids, asked them to set goals like the Christmas club. Sold IAC Coupons, Government bond coupons so people accumulated. Now its a monthly fee grab which pays all their overheads. I had $500 in a credit union with no fees. That MECU merged into a bank and one day I had a look at the account and there was $219 left. Hullo? What a way to encourage savings. Where do the Banks make money? The best saving rate offered is 2.7%. July 2018 ASIC estimated Australians had 45 billion in credit card debt. At an average rate of 23% (more for cash advances) this debt in theory earns the banks $10.35 billion a year. At July 2018 Australia's home loan debt was $21.2 billion at an average rate of 4.5% earning $945 million pa excluding penalties. While we concentrate on the venality and corruption of a relatively minor number of bank officers exposed by the RC, the big picture is overlooked. Banks are making 10 times the profit from unsecured debt compared to secured debt and ordinary Australians suffer. Nero fiddled, Rome burned.

So, the Royal Commission is over, the relevant national leadership is receiving what appears to be well-deserved criticism, and key figures are falling over themselves to say sorry. Meanwhile we, the rank and file affected by this well-documented and decades-long lack of leadership, wonder whether we will actually see any real changes, other than tinkering around the edges. Does it sound as though I am discussing the banks? Think again.

"This makes them the best example there is of the power of business in politics." So the more power the more corruption. And Many people believe that we are an economy, not a society, a nation or a community. When any group is beyond government control, the Maffia, ISIS or the banks we all have problems. In this case as you point out, John, both parties are collusive in maintaining the problems we face.

obviously there is no dislike of the banks as this morning's stock exchange has shown in the surge of the shares of the big four

Bank shares are up, just as astute economics gurus predicted. When both the government and opposition said they would implement all of the Commission’s recommendations, one guru presciently noted that it “suggests there’s nothing too draconian in it.” And that’s just how it turned out. No structural changes that might rectify the corruption that has entered the system over the last few decades when banks entered into the wealth management and life businesses: “Banks changed from being customer-oriented low-risk organizations to ones where higher risk, short-term shareholder returns dominated strategies.”

Aren't we supposed to have freedom of religion in Australia? But clearly we are forced to worship The Economy', and its high priests have no reason to feel threatened. Maybe they don't understand - or maybe they understand all too well. Something familiar here...

If the history of parliamentary democracy shows anything it it this. Government cannot legislate morality. The best we can settle for is that governments to legislate to make some immoral acts crimes, set up an agency to police these laws, and for offenders to go before a judiciary to be punished. Homicide is an easy example. It is even included in the Ten Commandments. Expounding moral principles with regard to money (or wealth is fraught. I remember back to my early religious instruction where I learned a basic lesson in Moral Relativism. The question put to us ten year olds was: Is it the same grave sin to steal five pounds from a tradesman earning six pounds a week as it is to cheat a millionaire owner of a shipbuilding firm worth fifty million pounds out of fifty pounds? In the current situation I might ask my ten year old grandson: Is it the same grave sin to offer a customer an interest rate of 1% when I am going to use his money to earn myself 10%?

Might I suggest that only Aboriginal Australians be eligible to serve as senior executives in Australian banks? This would ensure that, if the banks continued to behave in this way, their senior executives would go to jail.