The Front Page: Bank profits – What can New Zealand do to stop big four from making so much?

New Zealand's big four banks have been raking in money. Image / Getty Images

The issue of record bank profits has been flung into national headlines this week.

This comes off the back of ANZ’s $2.3 billion profit, ASB’s $1.47 billion, BNZ’s $1.4 billion and Westpac’s $1.1 billion.

The figures were so staggering that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hit out, saying it was wrong for banks to be making massive profits at a time when New Zealanders are struggling to make ends meet.

NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann tells the Front Page podcast that conventional economic thinking has long suggested that profitable banks are good for the New Zealand economy.

But the economic conditions that existed through the Global Financial Crisis and the stock market crash in the 80s aren’t at play in the current market.

The economic forces at the moment are quite different to those which led to financial catastrophes. Despite this, Dann warns that the Government should be careful how it goes about challenging the profitability of the country’s banks.

“The Government needs to be a bit careful when they’re criticising the banks, because what you’re really talking about is competition and the regulation of the banking marketing,” says Dann.

“And a lot of those things are in the hands of the Government itself.”

The point here is that the Government could play a role in addressing the high bank profits by taking certain steps.

On today’s episode of The Front Page, we look into potential solutions as we delve into the following questions:

• How did bank profits get so high?
• How do bank profits compare to other organisations?
• Are profitable banks really such a bad thing?
• What can the Government do to address this issue?
• Are opposition politicians offering any viable answers?
• Looking at supermarkets, gib and banks, why does New Zealand have so much market power concentrated with so few?
• Could anything disrupt the banking industry in New Zealand?