The Treasury presentation earlier in the week to the Senate inquiry on competition in the banking sector drew attention to a number of significant developments which have, collectively, altered the competitive dynamics of the retail banking sector in recent years.
The first, mentioned earlier, is the subdued recovery in the RMBS market. This has adversely affected the ability of smaller market participants to raise funding at competitive prices, in turn reducing their capacity to compete against the major banks in the home lending market.
The second development affecting competition is foreign banks withdrawing or scaling back their Australian operations, reflecting their reduced capacity to raise funds and to deploy capital away from their home operations.
And thirdly, there has been some degree of consolidation in the Australian banking sector since the global financial crisis.
A consequence of these factors is that the four major banks have expanded their collective market share across a range of loan and deposit products.
This is illustrated in the home loan market (Chart 5). The share of total housing loan credit for the five largest banks - the four majors plus St George - has increased from around 60 per cent before the onset of the GFC in mid-2007 to around 73 per cent.
Chart 5: Major banks gain market share