It is unlikely the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will be surprised or disappointed by the cynicism with which most home loan borrowers will greet Monday's announcement of an interest rate cut inquiry.
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The same Coalition government that had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the point where it ordered a Royal Commission into bad behaviour within the banking sector less than two years ago has directed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate the pricing of residential mortgages.
At issue is the failure of the big four banks and a number of smaller lenders to pass on the three interest rates cuts totalling 0.75 per cent announced by the Reserve Bank since January in full.
The average reduction was just 0.57 per cent; a shortfall of 0.18 per cent. It has been estimated that as a result of this cash grab lenders are about $570 million better off than if they had passed on the cuts in full.
Not a bad take out, even for a group of corporations that dominate a home loan market valued at $2 trillion, and of which the big four; the CBA, ANZ, NAB and Westpac, control 80 per cent.
While the willingness of the majors to subordinate the national interest and the welfare of their customers to their own bottom lines comes as no surprise given it has a long history, it is as disappointing as it is unfortunate just the same.
Two points are worth remembering here.
The first is some apologists for the sector have argued the banks are justified in not passing on all the cuts on the grounds that as the cash rate edges closer to zero the margins between what they pay for funds and what they get when they lend them out at gets tighter.
That sounds fair enough until you factor in the out-of-cycle and unilateral interest rate increases of between 0.12 and 0.16 per cent implemented by the lenders to protect their margins in late 2018 and early 2019.
It is still very much a case of "heads the banks win, tails the borrowers lose".
This, combined with the latest cash clawback, means margins are now about 0.34 per cent higher than they would otherwise have been. As a result the impact of the economic stimulus the Reserve Bank was hoping to deliver has been reduced by almost half.
The other point that should be taken into consideration is that when the GFC hit more than a decade ago the Australian government, quite sensibly, deemed the big four banks were "too big to fail".
The collapse of one or more would have had a devastating impact.
It was decided the government, or more accurately the tax payer, would protect them with a deposit guarantee that gave them a significant advantage over their smaller rivals at a time of potential volatility.
The big four, while happy to accept this largesse at the time, have never returned the favour by giving borrowers an even break. Rate increases are always passed on in full; cuts, not so much.
It is still very much a case of "heads the banks win, tails the borrowers lose".
None of the big four looked even close to moving into "negative profit" this year despite the cost of compensating the victims of inappropriate practices identified by the Hayne royal commission.
And, with savings accounts and term deposits now paying historically low returns, they are still stock market darlings thanks to their use of franking credits on dividends and their comparatively high dividend yields.
All of this adds up to one conclusion: this latest inquiry, the 72nd to be ordered or endorsed by this government in the past 12 months, is a smoke and mirrors exercise to hide the fact the Coalition either can't or won't force lenders to "give a go" to people who are having a go.