Mike's Minute: The banks have to answer some questions

Best of Business · Aug 9, 2023 · 2m

Am I changing my mind on banks?

I have defended banks.

I have defended them when Adrian Orr was wandering around talking about stress tests and making them put aside more money to cover a rainy day and catastrophe.

This, you might remember, against a track record of plenty of profit and success.

We have not seen the issues some have seen offshore. Banks in this part of the world have been wonderfully robust and performed well during the Global Financial Crisis and Covid.

In fact ASB, as if to prove it, yesterday announced another record profit - $1.56b in profit.

But, it's been done in a…