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 so we don't have the firm answers to this yet, but we are very cognisant of the responsibility the industry has to ensure that in-person banking remains available to Australians who need it, that it is there in times when they need it.
But we also have to find cost-effective ways that don't harm competition between the banks or leave some banks disadvantaged relative to others in the way that is delivered.
Well, I think we've got to think about what are the consequences of that change and what does it potentially mean.
So the more people shift towards using an Apple Pay, for example, then a greater share of the levies that are accrued through that payments network go to Apple.
Now, they're capped.
They're fixed.
They don't grow because you happen to have used your Apple phone to pay and Apple gets extra.
It comes off of essentially the bank's bottom line each time that is done.
And you go, well, where's the banks?
I hear listeners say and cry me a river around that.
But the consequences are playing out in a
Firstly, that of course, that means banks have less incentive to invest in that payment system, that they have less revenue coming from the payment system and more of it is going offshore.
Then there's the relativities in terms of the contribution to our country and measure it crudely in terms of tax paid.
The major banks in Australia paid $16 billion of tax.
Everybody knows that the global big tech companies are pretty good at minimising the tax that gets paid in Australia, and it's just a mere fraction of that from Apple or any counterparts in that space.
So without regulatory equivalence,
that ensures companies like Apple playing a bigger role in the payment system face the same type of equivalence around transparency and competition and access.
Without that type of regulatory equivalence, we run the risk of the fact that more revenue leaks offshore, leaving our banks less capable, but also creating a revenue leakage gap for our tax system that is then, of course, a detriment to all Australians.
I had the great honour of being Minister for Finance and a couple of other great portfolios too.
I miss parts of it for sure.
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