jdvictoria hiwhat you say is right, if a gov't owned bank (they...

jdvictoria hi

what you say is right, if a gov't owned bank (they could call it the 'commonwealth bank', has a nice ring to it) got big enough and fast enough to replace the mid tier banks australia has lost in the past year (bankwest, st george), and may lose in the next year (suncorp, bank qld). i daresay any gov't entrant into banking won't be able to fully staunch a pullback by overseas banks let alone eat into margins of the big 4. the only reason i didn't despise the increased stranglehold of our banking cartel over the past year was i thought bigger, quality international banks would try to stick it out in a mid-tier economy like australia, which the likes of ING/HSBC still probably will.

so far the Rudd Bank is just trying to cover the pullouts of european/american tiddlers (i guess like bnb's german bugbear hypo or something) who bought into australian syndicates. i don't think they have the strategy or gumption to take it up a level.