CBA goes it alone in RBA payments fight
The market leading bank has fired off a letter to the RBA despite failing to convince the peak industry lobby and its rivals to join it as co-signatories.
The Commonwealth Bank has failed to mobilise its big four rivals and the broader financial services industry for its campaign against key payment reforms proposed by the Reserve Bank, but still proceeded to fire a letter to the central bank outlining its concerns.
As Capital Brief this week revealed, CBA spent weeks revising a confidential letter to RBA Governor Michele Bullock – expressing “deep concern” over some of the proposals in the central bank's payments review – and searching for industry allies to lend their signatures to it.
But a source with direct knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity to speak freely told Capital Brief that Australia’s largest bank had sent the letter itself on Tuesday despite a cool response from its rivals and the industry's peak lobby group, who all declined to endorse it.
Originating within CBA’s business bank as an attempt to articulate the main points of contention, the initiative struggled to find traction within the industry. While it had been shared with the other major banks, they had been reluctant to back CBA's strong wording even if they broadly agreed with the thrust of the argument, according to several sources with direct knowledge of the discussions.
