"The big Banks and the financial sector in general seem to have gone the other way. Don't fight over the size of your share of the pie, rather make shure the pie itself keeps getting bigger. They know that if they start slashing charges, in the short term they will befit, but the others will have to match them, and the pie gets smaller. By accident or design they have also managed customer expectations very well, in that their customers almost expect to be ripped off."
An unreasonable comparison. There are only four banking licenses in Australia and those four banks have a level of Government guarantee. It is a highly regulated industry which is effectively a cartel. Indeed our protected banking system and universal superannuation is the basis of our strong Australian economy.