Australia

Regional Australia still waiting on bank reforms

The inertia of a year in regional bank closures abandoned rural Australians without response or service. Dale Webster.

Over the decades, one of the most important federal government investigations on regional Australia -specific welfare issues have delivered its final report a year ago this week.

The Senate investigation on regional bank closing was covered for 15 months, held 13 hearings throughout Australia and received more than 600 applications. In the end, he presented eight suggestions that senators thought that senators should see that they could see that our capitals could see that our capitals have emerged in the suburbs, but also in the suburbs of our capitals.

Nevertheless, a year later, although the government had to give an official response within 90 days from the table, the proposals are still neither accepted nor in a human-Arab.

The government did not clearly want it to be an election problem. A series of announcements were made by the treasurer Jim Chalmers Before determining the date of polling. This has enabled Chalmers that the basic boards of the Senate Committee’s solution to the problems presented to them should deal with Chalmers at such a critical time.

In its place:

  • Official movements to establish an official bank;
  • Banking is known as a basic service;
  • Commitment to guarantee reasonable access to cash and financial services; And
  • Independent Banking Behavior Rules.

The only thing we have is another moratorium at the closing of Anz, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac not to close more regional branches until July 31, 2027.

This was the movement they suffered to restore the garbage boxes more than 20 years ago after the latest regional banking investigations, this time the only difference is that they allow counting that counting is their own idea.

An excerpt below Too far away Report from the Hawker Regional Banking Investigation in 1999:

Individual banks made special commitments.

In July 1998, Anz announced the allocation of $ 10 million to develop and implement alternative ways to meet the banking needs of people in rural areas affected by a moorum and branch closures at the closes of rural branch. In February 1999, the committee said it would expand its commitments and committed not to withdraw from any community in the metropolitan or regional Australia. In addition, the committee, the existing external representative network will increase and expand and as a part of this process, traditional branches will open new agents in about 30 places, including towns where it is closed.

In November 1998, a branch of 300 million dollars announced a network upgrade, while Westpac has committed to protecting the number of current general branches in every country town and release the processing banking facility.

Like history After the end of the moratorium periods, the “solutions” were scrapped, which led to some of the most important cuts of the financial services that have been seen so far in regional Australia.

Dr Chalmers also played the bank’s hands – especially NABs – by explaining that he had negotiated for an expansion. Bank@Post Agreements rather than accepting the proposal of investigating a state committee of the Senate committee.

NAB in 2002 only Go out for a special word in the NSW Parliament “Forcing loyal customers to use post office” claiming “There will be no service loss” When this is not clear.

He did the same in the latest Senate investigation and tries to justify the closing branches, saying that the same services can be found in non -common post officers in other evidence.

Witnesses also talked about safety and privacy concerns, high wages for basic services and important problems with cash access while doing banking in post office.

DR Chalmers’s announcement – held at a joint press conference Australian Banking Association – He didn’t accept any of these details and escaped from the wrong premise. Bank@Post The full service was a fair alternative to the bank branch.

However, the most harmful proposal from Dr. Chalmers’s pre-selection was a cash task that would open a cash task that would allow 98 percent of Australian enterprises to reject the cash money-a trigger to trigger the country course Faster cashlessness than anything that banks can only hope for through their actions.

Each of these movements – moratorium, Bank@Post The agreement, which is exempted from small businesses from cash, has the distinguishing features of the decisions of someone who is shot by a smarter opponent.

Thinking of Dr Chalmers said . Australia Financial Review This should not be a surprise that he was one of the greatest confidi of Anna Blight of the Australian Banking Association in 2022. (Mrs. Blight would distinguish it with an entry that she did not do later during the Senate hearings. To read While the Morrison government was a member of the regional banking duty force, a single presentation.)

In the same article, Dr Chalmers Multi lists millionaires Matt comyn From Commonwealth Bank and the former NAB boss Ross Mcewan As the people he trusts for “real -time intelligence ,, how locking affects people and businesses.

And he didn’t see where the problem was.

New broom

The government’s response to the Senate investigation report is now officially delayed 279 days.

Regardless of the intervention of Dr Chalmers, a response needs to be discussed on the table.

Former Minister of Financial Services Stephen Jones He had to have done the job, but after retiring from the parliament in this year’s elections, the work now replaces him. Daniel Mulino.

Although Mr. Jones has no finance or economy history, Dr Mulino Robert Shiller.

He also presided over the Parliamentary Economy Committee in the last parliament.

Anz gets the business model to go without cash

In addition to academic identity information, Dr Mulino also has a strong social conscience.

As author Security network: the future of prosperity Published in 2022 in Australia, ‘Better results for vulnerable individuals’ taking systematic risk.

Sued for prosperity, ‘Not as a charity, but as an investment’, accordingly Bill Celty In the preface of the book.

It examines risk sharing in agricultural societies, modern village economies and even families and discusses the benefits of income conditional loans as a public policy instrument.

Dr Mulino says:

We have the opportunity to significantly improve the performance of most of our social insurance plans.

A wide variety of systematic risks affect society as a whole, and typically the government’s role to manage these risks. These include war, pandemi, economic cycles, automation, population aging, climate change and very important drought and natural disasters.

Currently, governments tend to adopt a reactive approach to most of these risks. Adopting a more meticulous insurance framework to manage these risks will strengthen our capacity to reduce and manage the uncertainty and to reduce and manage the loss potential.

Of course, a public bank has an important role in supporting and developing the type of social insurance defended by Dr Mulino?

The creation of an expert panel to conduct a feasibility study on the proposal is an excellent opportunity to address the role that a government bank can play in reducing some of the systematic risks that Dr Mulino discusses in Dr Mulino’s book.

The Greens and Nationals leader, which officially support the establishment of a public bank, hold the balance of power in the Senate. David LittleProud Before the election, this report cannot be ignored without asking some serious questions about the Albanian government, which wasted public funds in a 15 -month investigation, saying that if the coalition wins the government.

The silver primer in this delay may now be a Minister of Financial Services that understands that both political and economic benefits can flow rather than leaving behind rather than supporting vulnerable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc64lyy_cg

Dale Webster an opening buyer A Walkley Foundation Regional free journalism grant in Australia. This article initially published Open Regional and re -published with permission. You can follow Dale on Twitter @Theregional_au.

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