Mike's Minute: Are the banks the bad guys?

If you are looking for cogent arguments, then there was no shortage of them from the banks this week in front of the Parliamentary committee looking into banking.  They are doing this because the Government has decided banks need some kind of reform and there is not enough competition.  What they plan to do about it we don’t know, but it’s the same argument around telcos, and petrol, and supermarkets, and airlines.  Of particular concern to the Government is the way the farmers are treated.  There is dispute within the banking community, like KiwiBank, Heartland Bank, SBS, and TSB, all say it's not fair, the regulation is troublesome, and the playing field is not flat.  The bigger players say things are fine. Of course they would say that. But between them, and if you want to add the non-bank lenders, there seems to be no shortage of options.  The defence is that farm bank lending is tough work and it's tough work because lending money to farmers carries risk. Returns from rural lending isn't as high as city lending.  The complaint about farmers having higher rates is because a lot of farms operate on flexible rates, not fixed.  All the banks talked of their market share. No one bank dominates and a number of banks have grown their books.  None of this is to defend the banks at the expense of the farmer, it's just to say that there doesn't appear to be one side overtly more right than the other.  The ANZ boss this week more broadly defended her bank's profits. She was on a hiding to nothing. She too was cogent, made sense, and put up a good explanation as to how banks work and what sort of return they need.  It will make no difference, which is the big problem we, or in this case the Government, has with big business.  They say there must be a lack of competition, profits are too high (without of course anyone defining what exactly is an acceptable profit) and so we will need rules, threats, and the Commerce Commission.  But I will tell you this for nothing - none of it will change.  My very broad conclusion for all these industries is we have an imperfect market, based partially, but in no small part, on the fact we are a tiny isolated country with five million people.  We think we should get better than we do and by being hoodwinked into thinking that, someone must be a robber baron.  They aren't, but it makes us feel better. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.