Credit Cards: Green Bandt to ban Hole in the Wall cash bandits.

You'll "get more green out of your ATM cash machine" soon if Andrew Bandt gets his private members bill over the line.

Bandt's bill has the attraction factor

Green Andrew is proposing a ban on those $2.00 ATM transaction fees for withdrawing cash.
Politicians from the entire spectrum are liking his tune and are backing Green MP Adam Bandt's private member's bill.
Bob Katter also stuck his boot into the Government and Opposition for skinny policy offerings, though Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan has been holding its cards close to it chest. He is expected to release his plan for banking reform later this month.
Though Independent MPs Andrew Wilkie, Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter and unaligned Nationals MP Tony Crook said Mr Bandt's bill, now before Parliament, was the most promising proposal on banking, they have yet to see the Labor Plan, but I suspect that it will be more wide ranging in terms of offering real competition to the major banks than Andrew bandt's bill. Let's wait and see on that one.

Call to action to stir Wayne Swan

The calls to action increases the pressure on Treasurer Wayne Swan, who will next month announce banking reforms that could need the support of the crossbenchers.
The banks' all claim that politicians did not understand that funding costs were going up. Wilke says that this core claim is nonsense.
Mr Katter said the surge in banking chiefs' salaries also warranted attention and could be curbed through the tax system.
Mortgage Foreclosures unfair.
He called on the government to do ''something serious'' about the system of mortgage foreclosure, which was weighted in lenders' favour.

Summary of Bandt's Bill

As it stands, Andrew Bandt's proposed bill has three main areas of saings for Australian Credit users.

1. A crackdown on Bank Fees.
2. Mortgage Rates to move in line with RBA increases
3. A ban of bank transaction fees of $2.00 per transaction.

Whatever the outcome, it looks like Australia's Parliament is in for a lively time on the floor next year, and home buyers can look forward to more and better loan offers from nonbank players, lower mortgage interest rates and lower fees, no to low exit fees on their mortgages rates, and credit card losing unfair fees. Sounds good to me.

Not happy bank! Australian banks earn $2 billion in fees and charges from their customers

The major Australian banks earned $2 billion more in fees and charges from their customers while hiking interest rates independently of the Reserve Bank.
New research published yesterday showed that in the year to June, the most recent figures available, banks accrued income from fees and commissions of $22.6 billion.
The result was well up on $20.48 billion they earned in the previous year and came as they were lifting, of their own accord, rates on mortgages, credit cards and personal loans.
The spate of rate hikes started in January when each major bank moved independently of the Reserve Bank, blaming the global financial crisis for increasing wholesale funding costs.
The round of rate hikes occurred on top of the Reserve Bank of Australia's two upward movements in official rates in February and March.
The figures published by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority did not show the impact of the 300 basis points in cuts ordered by the Reserve Bank in the past four months.
However, some of the banks have not passed on the full cuts to customers, with ANZ and Westpac keeping some of of the reduction from the 100-basis point cut by the RBA this month in their profit margins.
The level of account fees paid by Australian customers has reached a record high, with at least $1.4 billion spent in the June quarter on transaction and lending activity.
MWE Consulting analyst Mike Ebstein, an independent researcher, said the increase in fees came as customers placed more money with the major banks.
"The year end June total is up on the year end of June 2007," Mr Ebstein said.
"But the last quarter went against the annual trend and the 10.4 per cent growth in fees and commissions was well below the growth in assets and deposits."
Despite the increase in fees, Australians have turned into fiscal conservatives, choosing to hoard cash out of the volatile financial markets.
Before the recent interest rate cuts, banks were offering deposit rates above 8 per cent in a bid to reduce their reliance on volatile funding markets. However, as official rates have been cut, deposit rates have been slashed.