Commerce Commission opens banking competition probe
The Commerce Commission says it has now opened a market study into competition in the retail banking industry, and the result could be anything from a “clean bill of health” to recommendations for change to enhance competition.
On Tuesday, the Government announced it was ordering the commission to probe competition in retail banking following months of mounting anger over high bank profits even as households struggled with a cost of living crisis.
The market study would examine how well competition was working and consider options for enhancing competition for the long-term benefit of households, said Commerce Commission chairperson John Small.
Neato.
NZ Capitalism is an under regulated joke that allows the big players to gain market dominance while strangling off smaller companies and limiting competition.
The entire country is riddled with these self interested bubbles and the reason we have a Commerce Commission and the reason why it is given the most extraordinary powers of any state agency is because the State reserves its most powerful tools to use against the Market to ensure it is behaving fairly.
We should welcome the inquiry into Banks while demanding the Commerce Commission also investigates other parts of the economy including Drainage!
The Commerce Commission is currently looking into the Drainage industry but have made no firm decision if they will investigate.
Drainage matters because a couple of huge players have dominated the supplies market and are price gouging which adds enormous cost to home builders, home buyers, and the Government!
I’m not looking for Socialism from Labour, just basic regulated capitalism!
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
The credibility of this report can be judged by whether they even mention the collapse of almost all credit unions, and why nearly all of the member-owned savings banks (dozens of trustee savings-and-loans and savings mutuals) were de-mutualised and gobbled up by the Martin Place banking barons.
Prediction: It will either barely be mentioned, or probably not at all. Can’t endanger those political donations!
May be they will probe what happens at the coal face. Went into the ANZ (not my bank)to make a deposit There are over a dozen people in the que for one teller. It takes almost an hour to get served. There are other bank personel milling around. They don’t put on a second teller The branch has room for more than two tellers but is set up for only two tellers max. I asked one of the milling around guys why they aren’t catering to their clients demand for more tellers. He said in a tone which displayed anger at the customers “these people could all do their banking from home but they wont”. The que was mostly a mix of pensioners and immigrants whose first language is not English and people dealing in cash. He went on to say we don’t want people using cash. What you have here is the bank transferring it’s expenses onto it’s customers time. The bank obviously doesn’t value the customers or wider publics time. What is the value of their lost time? What is the value of lost production when people are late back to work? etc. Once you get to the front of the que after your hour of frustration you are met with a sign that says “Abusive language will not be tolerated” The tellers are under pressure and say they have asked for more staff but it’s not going to happen.