Banking is an essential service. Branches must stay open (Gerard Rennick)

Banking is an essential service. It’s why we need a Public Bank.

Earlier this year the Senate RRAT committee handed down its recommendations from the inquiry into closure of bank branches in the Regions.

The key finding was that a Public bank should be started by the government combining the physical presence of the post office with the payment systems of the RBA. In short most of the Infrastructure is already in place to make this happen.

All it takes is the willpower to do it.

As I state in my speech, Banking is an essential service like health and education. The best way to ensure its delivery is through a public/private model of delivery similar to what we have with health and education. Private banks can offer higher quality bespoke services at higher prices while a public bank can offer standard services at a cheaper cost.

The Public bank would be self-funding and aim to make an ROE of 5-6% v 10% for the private banks.

Additional services like Insurance and Superannuation accounts can also be provided.

The inquiry found that certain sectors were particularly vulnerable to bank closures. These were:

1) Businesses who need access to cash
2) Retirees who no longer feel comfortable using the internet or are vulnerable to scams
3) Regional communities who have to travel hundreds of kilometres to the next branch or don’t have access to the internet
4) Immigrants with poor English who need help with setting up bank accounts

Banks are profiting from closing down branches via

1) fewer running costs
2) greater merchant fees by forcing people to use credit cards
3) reduced CO2 emissions enabling them to meet their net zero targets (in other words the regions are the ones suffering thanks to the woke inner city mind virus)

The only party to fully support a Public Bank is peoplefirstparty.au

You can check out my other work at www.gerardrennick.com.au



[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, September 10, 2024.]