Seen this before, but it's very cool. The sector in the UK seems a lot better than Australia - here you need a minimum of $50 million in Tier 1 capital (share c

Seen this before, but it's very cool. The sector in the UK seems a lot better than Australia - here you need a minimum of $50 million in Tier 1 capital (share capital and retained income) to even start the process to become an Authorised Deposit-taking Institution. Sure, banking is a serious business, but I think it'd be beneficial to have a special category for small startup banks only requiring $5 to $10 million or so, with adequate supervision etc. The problem we have though is that the culture of our banks is rotten to the core, and dominated by four main players. The regulators (ASIC and APRA) are underfunded and mainly turn a blind eye to a lot of what goes on (mainly going after smaller financial services companies who can't afford the same kind of lawyers as the banks). We're only finally having a proper enquiry now after investigative journalists having uncovered a lot of this years and years ago, and most people are pretty shocked at what's going on. I think the sector could benefit from smaller players coming in (hopefully with better morals), but the regulatory requirements are helping to protect the big banks' strangleholds.