Save the Banks!

Full page advert from this week's edition of the Australian financial services magazine "Complete Banker":

"Bank customers of Australia

Please take a moment from your pathetic lives to heed this warning from the Bankers Association.

Your way of life is under threat!

A royal commission into banking is an attack on the four pillars of the Australian banking system - Honesty, Trust, Fairness and Customer Service - values for which the Australian Banking industry continues to set new standards year after year.

A royal commission into banks is a waste of money - the estimated cost of legal submissions could be as high as $50 million for each of the major banks. That's nearly a month's worth of ATM fees (see terms and conditions).

A royal commission into banks is unnecessary - as the prime minister and former Banker of the Year Malcolm Turnbull has said:

"ASIC has all of the powers of a royal commission; all of the powers of a royal commission plus much more"

Thanks to time constraints, lack of public scrutiny and the inability to compel witnesses to give evidence, ASIC is a far more efficient way of regulating the banks.

In fact ASIC is so efficient that the government was able to sack 12% of their staff and cut $120 million from their funding and still keep them on as the nation's sole corporate regulator.

ASIC is a tough regulator - we learnt our lesson when they investigated us for manipulating interest rates. Just like we did with the investigations into dodging legitimate insurance claims, overcharging on credit cards, providing dodgy financial advice, rigging the bank bill swap rate, and all the other things we sometimes get caught doing.

Sure the fines we get are a fraction of our profits from those practices but hey, it's still more money than most of you will see in a lifetime.

So this election vote for the party that puts the bankers first and help maintain the standard of service Australians have come to expect from the banks.

Your vote is important to us, please toe the line."