The Commonwealth Bank yesterday reported a record net profit of $7.67 billion, adding to the $23.5 billion in net profits it made in the previous four years.  Yet it remains opposed to the Government’s proposed 0.05% bank levy.  The proceeds of a levy would be saved and used to fish financial institutions out of deep water in the future, rather than relying on taxpayers.

Together the four big banks’ net profits for the past four years have been in excess of $92 billion. So, you would think they would be able to afford to fund the levy without passing it on.

The industry’s lobby group, the Australian Banking Association (ABA), says the levy is unnecessary and the costs associated with it would most likely be passed onto its customers, you and me, rather than let it impact their bottom line.

Hang on, in order to keep the shareholders happy, they are going to sting their customers instead?  But their customers ARE their shareholders.

When the banks’ senior managements say shareholder they mean ‘institutional investor’, conveniently forgetting that institutional investors only manage our money, they don’t own it. They invest on our behalf, but we are the ultimate owners. We are also the taxpayers that would have to bail out a failing bank.

If you have a superannuation fund, you are very likely to have some ownership in bank shares. The S&P/ASX 200 index is a list of the 200 largest companies in Australia by market capitalisation (ie. the number of shares multiplied by the share price). As at 28 June 2013, the big four banks made up four of the top five largest companies, which means most superannuation funds would have some shareholding in one, if not all, of the banks. Many international asset managers are also likely to be invested in these large Australian companies too.

So, given the shareholders, customers and taxpayers are the same people, perhaps there is another way to look at this.

The levy would be an insurance policy against the collapse of a financial pillar of the Australian economy. Surely the banks should fund the levy without punishing the customers, given the money raised by the levy might save them in the event of a crisis. The institutional investors should not punish the banks through selling down their stock if they have a period of flat profit growth due to absorbing the levy, because their clients are the banks’ customers. Also, creating this pool of ‘insurance’ is in the long-term interest of the shareholders because a collapsed bank is worth nothing.

Related articles

• CBA profit tops $7.6b (news.theage.com.au)
• Australia unveils bank deposit levy (bbc.co.uk)