Thursday 28th of March 2024

morrison is hoping that plundering YOUR pockets via the banks will make you hate them more than ever before...

gagging banks...

Australia's biggest banks say they have been forced to sign a confidentiality agreement before the Government provides executives with draft details of a new $6.2 billion tax.

Key points:
  • Banks say they cannot absorb the Government's proposed levy and that cost will be passed to customers, shareholders
  • ABA chief Anna Bligh says tax is being "hidden" from the public
  • Treasurer says confidentiality order won't stop executives from sharing information within their offices

Banking executives are furious having already criticised the Government for the surprise budget hit, saying Treasury set an unreasonably short deadline for submissions.

Many executives have already indicated they will pass the costs of the levy to customers and shareholders, arguing they cannot absorb the tax as the Government claims they should.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/federal-budget-2017/2017-05-17/...

 

A bad tax has now become a secret tax...

THE COALITION'S 2017 Budget has unexpectedly proposed a levy on the liabilities of Australia’s biggest banks — the Big Four plus Macquarie Bank.


The levy will be at 0.06% on all funding raised, other than for (guaranteed) deposits under $250,000.


Who will pay the levy? Customers, or shareholders, or employees?


Fairfax’s Elizabeth Knight notes:


“… there is an overwhelming view among investors and analysts that the banks will pass on the cost of the levy to customers rather than cut dividends.”

The presumption is that customers will wear it. That investors and analysts can be so sure, highlights a practice and a structure well embedded.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-big-four-obscene-profits-and-scomos-ineffectual-bank-levy,10307

customers to pay...

Westpac has warned the Turnbull government’s contentious $6.2bn bank levy will cost the bank $260m after tax this year, saying there is no way it can simply “absorb” it.

It said the cost would have to flow to customers, shareholders, staff, suppliers, “or some combination of all four”.

It warned the Australian Securities Exchange on Monday the cost of the levy was equivalent to around 8c per share and, based on the bank’s 2016 full-year dividends, represented 4.3% of dividends paid.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/may/22/westpac-says-it-c...

not helping the budget...

The Australian Bankers' Association demand a Senate inquiry into the Coalition's proposed $6.2 billion bank levy.

Chief executive Anna Bligh warns it could have unintended or adverse consequences for the economy.

 

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-25/politics-live-may-25/8556888

the bad smell of some moneys...

Where do you start?

A total clean-out of the board and management of the Commonwealth Bank, a complete rethink of the role of our financial institutions, or a subjective investigation on the impact of new technology and whether it can replace human involvement?

There is no way to understate the extent of the latest allegations against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia; ignoring money laundering for drug syndicates, turning a blind eye to terrorism financing and abjectly ignoring statutory reporting responsibilities for more than three years on three quarters of a million accounts.

This is a deeply disturbing failure on an epic scale, one with the capacity to undermine national security.

So serious is it, that a scribe on one national newspaper last Friday suggested the unthinkable: that the bank should consider withholding bonuses to executives, action that would "send a strong message" to the community, authorities and those within the bank.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-07/commonwealth-bank-laid-the-groundw...

NOT a good week for the banks...

It has been alleged the CBA funded terrorism, so why isn’t CEO Ian Narev being held incommunicado and without charge under Australian terrorism laws? Asks John Passant.

IT HAS NOT been a good week for the banks.

The latest outrage from the perpetual outrage machine that is the banks comes from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA).

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) is alleging over 53,000 breaches of the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws by the CBA.  

The alleged breaches relate mainly to the bank’s "intelligent deposit machines". These are basically ATMs that accept cash and cheques.

According to Austrac, the CBA failed

‘... to report $10,000 deposits on time, pass on its suspicions, and monitor suspicious customers.’  

These included groups people identified as "high risk", such as those funding terrorism. 

According to Clancy Yeates in the Sydney Morning Herald:

‘Six of these late reports related to five customers "who had been assessed by CommBank as posing a potential risk of terrorism or terrorism financing", Austrac said in its statement of claim.'

Alleged breaches by CBA include six instances when it believed customers were possibly financing terrorism https://t.co/hubxofCDgY via @smh

— Clancy Yeates (@clancyyeates) August 3, 2017

We live in a climate of terrorism hysteria. In the last week, four people have been held without charge under anti-terrorism laws. One was released after four days, two were finally charged with catch-all vague terrorism offences after five days and one remains in custody without charge at the time of writing.

I have little doubt there are terrorists out there who wish to do ordinary Australians harm. However, the hysteria about terrorism needs to be put into context.

Women, for example, are much safer flying in aeroplanes than they are at universities or in the family home. The level of sexual assaults of women in universities and the lack of support from universities and governments is frightening and expresses the reality of capitalism today and in the past. It needs cheap child care and the family, and women as carers fit the bill.

A simple comparison of the number of people killed in terrorism related incidents in Australia to the number of women killed by their partners or other men who knew their victim raises serious questions about government and societal priorities. In the past 20 years, terrorists have killed three people in Australia. In just the first four days of the last week of July, according to the Counting Dead Women Australia project, researchers of Destroy The Joint, four women died at the hands of men known to them. At least two of the killers were the women’s partners. According to Destroy the Joint, this year alone 27 women have been killed by their partners. The injury toll is much higher.

This is a national emergency. Yet nothing is done about it, other than cutting funding for women’s refuges and other women’s services. Imagine if a government – any government – devoted the same level of resources it spends on counter terrorism to fighting and preventing domestic violence and sexual assault. Just a pittance from the Defence budget would help.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/terrorism-hig...