Customer Owned Banking Association CEO Mike Lawrence, who represents 56 customer-owned banks, says the federal government should review the levy on Australia’s four major banks and Macquarie Group.
He contends that there is scope to raise the levy because smaller banks face a bigger increase in funding costs than their larger rivals in the wake of the global banking crisis. The former Coalition government introduced the 0.015% bank levy in 2017 to ensure that major banks pay some of the cost of the implicit guarantee that they will be bailed out in the event of a banking crisis.
The levy raised $1.55 billion in 2022, and this is forecast to rise to $1.65 billion by 2025.
