Simon Birmingham
speaker
69 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 7 Jul
Simon Birmingham’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And at the same time, the value of those banks have grown.
So actually, the wealth of Australian households over 15 years, in real terms, has grown from $240 billion to $470 billion in terms of their ownership and their investment in banks.
And that's money that goes to your retirement savings, my retirement savings, and the retirement savings of many, many millions.
In fact, likely most of Australians, at least through their super funds, if not directly.
Banking has really gotten much more competitive and we've seen that at a range of different metrics.
In terms of people swapping mortgages, 640,000 people refinanced their mortgage last year.
That shows that what were perceived as the barriers that made that too hard or not worthwhile have actually changed and people are finding it worthwhile.
In fact,
Our analysis shows that on average, some 0.35% was shaved off, which can save households $2,000 in mortgage repayments per year in terms of having shaved that off.
And if we look at the way banks and the finance industry measure these things, the NIM, the net interest margin, has narrowed considerably over a period of time as that
competition between banks for customers has tightened.
That's good news for consumers.
It does demonstrate that banks are taking that competition quite seriously.
And we can see that when we read the financial press about the competition, not just between the big four now, but also, of course, digital-only banks and the challenges that they are presenting in terms of
other innovative business models that are well and truly being responded to by the big four.
And that competition is good for customers of all of those banks.
I think we as an industry recognise that there is an expectation that Australians will have reasonable access to in-person support when they really need it for their banking services.
Now, for now, that is being addressed in regional Australia by the moratorium commitments that the big four gave on branch closures.
But that's a short-term response.
longer term we are trying to work through what does in-person banking look like in a future world where customers increasingly shift onto digital platforms where they are using those those different skills techniques digital literacy and knowledge to be able to access their banking in a whole range of ways where digital only banks have been growing in their capturing of market share
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