Sydneyguy - on the contrary, I think your post would have been...

Sydneyguy - on the contrary, I think your post would have been the right place for a reasonable discussion about this, rather than this thread which quickly became yet another defacto Opus Prime/we hate ANZ/rar rar rar session.

To answer your question - although I don't know the level of exposure ANZ has, BNB needed a huge, cheap supply of money to be able to compete and win their bids and deals. It's unlikely this mostly comes from the Australian 'big four', although they probably do have some exposure. For instance, when news broke of the review of BNB's $2.8B loan facility, we found out that the loan was generated by a consortium of 25 banks...so it's not like ANZ is behind every seeming dodgy deal done in the world. Not that this is necessarily a dodgy deal - the quality of BNB's assets is good, and the idea is that they deliver a good steady long-term steam of money back to BNB's ultimate backers.

So it's complicated. The easy answer is that there is no provision made for BNB currently - and if there was made, it would probably destroy any confidence in BNB so I'm not sure if one will be done (unless things get truly dire). But you can probably take heed from what Nortiba wrote a few posts back - there's plenty of other provisioning being made, and just because it's been provided for doesn't mean it's going to be used.

As for whether you use this if you're looking at the banks - it probably depends on what time frame you're investing for. Will they go down from here? Probably. But if you're looking at a 25 year + investment, then there's a great thread in the NAB section estimating growth taking advantage of DRP at these price levels.

Good luck!