. “But trouble happens to banking just like trouble happens everywhere else. In the good times you get into bad habits … when bad times come they lose too much.
To be clear, Australia’s big banks are, on the whole, run intelligently. This, combined with a strong prudential regulation and conservative capital settings, means the drama that hasIn the next seven days, the four banks will produce record earnings, or go very close to it, thanks to the way surging interest rates have lifted bank profit margins, while bad debts have remained at record lows.
So, analysts and investors will rightly be looking hard for any pockets where, to use Munger’s words, the Australian banks have fallen into bad habits or succumbed to pockets of temptation. No doubt investors will want to double-check the banks’ assertions that their exposures to this sector remain much lower than in the 1990s, when a commercial property bust took some banks to the brink.It’s now widely acknowledged that new mortgages are being written below the banks’ cost of capital across the sector.