It may be because the banks need to lift their cash reserves. They keep whinging about the increased cost of borrowing. As Australians aren't known to be very good savers, the banks will have to borrow money from overseas. This may be OK in the short term, or so long as the Australian currency keeps rising against the currencies for which the loans were drawn in, and for the banks to meet interest payments. But should the AU$ drop by a large amount, this will make the cost of the loans very expensive indeed.
If the banks are concerned about this, which I think they are, then perhaps they should start paying a decent rate of return on savings accounts. This may encourage Australians to put more of their capitol into banks.
