Naked Among Cannibals: What Really Happens Inside Australian BanksThis insider’s story explores how Australian banks have lost the trust and respect of their customers by relentlessly pursuing profits. It describes the various new devices implemented by the State Bank and adopted by other banks to increase their revenues to the detriment of their staff and customers. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 8 | |
| 14 | |
| 28 | |
Reinventing the Bank | 37 |
Management by committee | 49 |
Pricing Committee and barefaced effrontery | 63 |
From revered to reviled | 86 |
Transfer pricing rules OK | 162 |
All go at Altco | 170 |
Shades of Gray in Treasury | 182 |
Give me the child and Ill give you the man | 199 |
Show me the money | 212 |
First State first rate | 229 |
Going broke in broking | 236 |
Bank for sale highest bidders not welcome | 244 |
A muchloved borrower | 111 |
Funny Money | 128 |
Once were customers | 141 |
An element of the fantastic | 157 |
Cash for comments | 264 |
Cries from the heart | 269 |
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Common terms and phrases
advisers Altco assets Australian banks Australian dollar Australian Financial Review balance sheet Bank of Australia Bank Treasury Bank's banking industry became bond borrowers branch capital cent charge Chief Executive clients Colonial State Bank corporate loan cost customers dealers dealing room debt deregulation dollars earnings ensure Farley fees FSSL funds management future Government growth guarantee home loan housing loans increase interchange fee interest rates investment bankers investors issue John Fahey John O'Neill lenders lending loss major banks management team Managing Director margins mating calls meeting million months National Australia Bank O'Neill's offer options paid payment person Phil Gray portfolio Pricing Committee problem profit recession Report Reserve Bank retail deposits risk sell share price shareholders Smedley South Wales staff strategy swaps Sydney Morning Herald term deposit trading transaction transfer pricing wanted Westpac Whitlam
Popular passages
Page 62 - Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Page v - People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Page 291 - If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.
Page 208 - The sense in which I am using the term is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain, or the price of copper and the rate of interest twenty years hence, or the obsolescence of a new invention, or the position of private wealth owners in the social system in 1970. About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know.
Page xii - Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.
Page 28 - Kindleberger's distinguished and fascinating book (Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises [Basic Books, 1978]) has ably demonstrated, economic crises have been with us as long as the market economy. At some point, greed overcomes fear and individual investors take greater risks in the pursuit of greater returns. A shock occurs and the market prices of assets begin to collapse. Bankruptcies of leveraged individuals and institutions follow. Banks and other financial institutions...
Page 208 - uncertain" knowledge, let me explain, I do not mean merely to distinguish what is known for certain from what is only probable. The game of roulette is not subject, in this sense, to uncertainty; nor is the prospect of a Victory Bond being drawn. Or, again, the expectation of life is only slightly uncertain. Even the weather is only moderately uncertain. The sense in which I am using the term is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain, or the price of copper and the rate of...