Foreign bank entry long-term option

Press, 28 October 1982, Page 25

Foreign bank entry long-term option

PA Sydney Foreign bank entry must be seen as a medium to longterm option for increasing competition in the Australian financial system, the chief executive officer of the Australian Federation of Credit Unions, Ltd, Mr Peter Timmins, said yesterday.

Mr Timmins said that a more pressing need was for the Federal Government to address those issues which now restricted competition between Australian financial istitutions.

He said the Government, during the past 18 months, had made significant changes in the rules and regulations under which licensed trading and savings banks operated. “Yet the Federal and State Governments have still to comment, let alone act, on Campbell Committee recommendations relating to other financial institutions.” '■ He said that credit unions

already provided financial services to 1.6 million Australians, and that the Campbell Committee had recommended they should be able to provide other services such as chequing, and have direct access to Reserve Bank liquidity support. Mr Timmins said that almost 12 months after the Campbell Committee report had been finalised, these issues apparently remained in the Government’s ’loohard” basket.

“Locally-owned Australian institutions deserve the opportunity to compete with banks which have had a privileged position in these areas,” he said. “It will be a long time, if ever, before foreign banks provide services to anything ike the millions of Australians who are now served by Australian-owned non-bank financial institutions such as credit unions and building societies.”