Yabby obviously you’re an apologist for the money . All I will say to justify my fury and your complacency is that our Australian banking cartels have the HIGHEST fees of any banking institutions in the OECD, you name the product, and it costs Aussies more. Refute that rather than justifying their profits.

Sonofgloin, I don't need to refute anything. I am simply pointing
out, that many of the headlines reported, are more about spin
and distortion of the actual figures, then reality.

Now watch with bank profits, how the press highlights their increase
over last year, ignoring their massive drop last year over 2008.

Once gain, banks make massive profits, because people borrow massively, not because of massive margins. A 1% return on assets
is hardly a rip off.

No wonder banks are so worried about spreads. If they were to charge
you .5% less and pay me 0.5% more, they would effectively make 0.

Banks are making more money, as they have increased the amounts
loaned and used more shareholder capital to do it. Not because
they have increased their margins. That is the key point here.

Yabby do not give me creative accounting figures, what a joke that you believe the banks run on 1% net, what business runs on 1% net every year, failed ones. Did you see the NBA result of 63% growth in net profits last financial and the ANZ was even higher. Both banks do more business here than os, where did the growth come from. My fiscal situation is certainly not 60% better than last financial; between the banks and the government I am screwed as both plot ways to relieve me of cash without giving anything extra. I respect your right to views Yabby but I don't believe your observations are rational, more like defense diatribe you feel obligated to regurgitate.

*what a joke that you believe the banks run on 1% net,*

Sonofgloin, I really can't help it, if you are financially illiterate
and can't read a basic balance sheet. Mike Smith of the ANZ, once
again quoted that figure on business tv today, for that is roughly
what our banks run on. The reason they make huge profits, is
because they lend out huge volumes of money, something like
2.2 trillion $ between the 4 of them.

The 1% net is on total assets. CBA, if you bother to go to their
website, has total assets on books of 636 billion $. Much of that
is borrowed from overseas.

Now if you go an borrow 100k$ and I lend the bank 100k $, their
net profit is around 500$ from each of us. You are free to take
the trouble to educate yourself, go to the CBA website and look
it up for yourself.

Yes, right now they are all announcing higher profits over last year.
That is because last year they announced massively lower profits
then the year before. Their dividends are still below what they
were, before the GFC. But of course announcing a good figure over
last year, makes the CEO look good.

The extra profits have come from less then expected bad loans, and
alot more business, not from higher margins. Fact is that when
the GFC hit, alot of overseas banks fled and alot of local investors
pulled their money from the sharemarket and put it into the safety
of banks. It was called a flight to quality, as in hard times,
people run for the protection of the safest banks.

Westpac should do even better tomorrow, as they are getting a huge
tax refund worth a few hundred million, for tax wrongly paid earlier.

Mike Smith correctly pointed out today, that before bank deregulation
in Australia, banks used to work on spreads of 500 basis points or
5%. Now they work on spreads down to 100 basis points, depending on
the loan, the average is around 220. So banking is extremely
competitive.

http://cba.republicast.com/ar2010/#p=92&c=0&v=1

There you go Sonofgloin, I'll even hold your hand and take you
to the CBA 5 year financial summary. I was out 10 billion,
total assets are 646 billion, net profit 6 billion, ie 1% net
margin.