The growing digital banking divide
Crypto, decentralised finance and digital asset tokenisation failed to make the list of the federal government's banking priorities, and rightly so. But Australia does risk falling behind other markets.
If you were to rank the highest profile issues in Australian financial services, decentralised finance, cryptocurrency platforms and tokenised assets are hardly the hot topics around the sausage sizzle.
That was confirmed on Friday when Treasurer Jim Chalmers released his statement on a better deal with banking products. DeFi opportunities didn’t crack a mention among the list of government priorities.
Instead, better transparency around deposit pricing, better disclosure around conflicts on comparison sites, easier loan switching, and a blue sky directive to Treasury to use behavioural finance to nudge consumers to better deals were Chalmers’ focus.
On the face of it, they're sensible priorities and, in most cases, achievable. Moreover, a review into the competitive pressures facing smaller and regional banks is very timely as many of their cost challenges are on the regulatory front.
