Campaigners want break up of big banks, windfall tax

https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/350274164/campaigners-want-break-big-banks-windfall-tax

New Zealand’s big four Australian-owned banks treat the country as a “wealth pump”, charging high loan rates and paying low deposit rates, says a member of a campaign which hopes to change that.

The OECD says banks in New Zealand are twice as profitable as they should be, and the Banking Reform Coalition (BRC) believes that separating the banking sector into retail or wholesale banks will usher in cheaper banking for households and businesses.

Tex Edwards, the founder of 2degrees, social investment expert Kent Duston, and Ernie Newman, whose campaigning helped bring about the break-up of Telecom, will launch the coalition at the Commerce Commission’s three-day conference in Auckland on bringing competition to the banking oligopoly.

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