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Oligopoly in the Australian Banking Sector

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Oligopoly in the Australian Banking Sector By Adiktd Introduction The Australian banking sector is dominated by four institutions who together account for over 85% of the domestic home loan value. These firms; National Australia Bank (NAB), Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Westpac (WBC) and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), have a collective market cap of over 400 billion dollars  (Tradingroom 2013) , five times the total assets of the remaining banks, mutual funds and various other financial institutions combined  (KPMG 2011) . Although the market is said to be highly competitive (Wikipedia 2013) the high concentration of market power by a small number of firms can be likened to a form of oligopolistic behaviour. As the market leaders are able to manipulate the market, forcing smaller firms and consumers to comply. The four pillars policy adopted in 1990 can be attributed to this as it restricted any merger or acquisition of the “Big Four Banks” by each other or ...
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The state of the Australian economy in 15 charts

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 Australia's economy is expected to grow below-trend this year, before picking up next year as the non-mining sectors fill the gap left by the fall-off in mining investment. In November, the RBA cuts its growth forecasts for this year to 2.5 per cent. It expects resources investment to drop off at a faster-than-expected pace, for the federal and state governments to remain restrained in their spending, and for the Australian dollar to remain at elevated levels. The chart also shows that Australia has not fallen into recession (two quarters of negative growth) for more than two decades. Photo: RBA    One of the key factors behind the strength of the Australian dollar has been sharp rise in commodity prices. Commodity prices have been driven up by emerging economies such as Brazil, India and China, Australia's biggest trading partner. While commodity prices have slipped over the past two years, as the chart shows, they are still at very high levels. (Austr...
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