Recent content by SIGI

Kremmen: you are quite right - I overstepped the mark with the "cartels are always bad", fingers moving faster than brain. There are indeed areas where it makes sound economic sense for there to be few players. Retail banking in Oz however, could tolerate a lot more competition before we start...

"Force" comes in many guises. Ad spend as noted by prawn_86 is a biggie, the complexity of moving institutions is another, lack of financial education is another (not everyone has access to the net or would know what to do with it if they did!). The consumers are sticky - that's not my opinion...

Perhaps I should be more clear - I'm not bashing banks. I have no axe to grind over CEO pay or bankers bonuses. Neither am I suggesting that the banks have any responsibility to anyone other than their shareholders. I'm just making a simple economic observation, the large profits imply, to me...

You are quite right there are more than 4 banks in Oz - but the point is whether the dominance of the big 4 is beneficial to consumers, their large balance sheets and advertising budgets does not make for a market of perfect information for the average joe. Bank customers are notoriously sticky...

A cartel is nearly always bad for consumers, in this case it certainly is. If you want a competitive capitalist environment, you must have competition, the more competition, the better for the consumer (regulation of the market is another story). It been said before but it's worth...

Hi, does anyone know if you can buy/find notes for the RG146 courses without having to sign-up with a school. I'm interested in the knowledge but not the qualification?