Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) and Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC) shares are both up this morning.
Commonwealth Bank and Westpac are Australia’s two largest banks ahead of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) and National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB).
Bank APRA lobbying boosts share prices
According to the Australian Financial Review, as reported by leading journalist Jonathan Shapiro, the major banks are trying to convince APRA (the banking regulator) not to force them to raise $75 billion through Tier II bonds.
The big banks are claiming the global demand for Tier II bonds wouldn’t be enough for them to raise 7% of their risk-weighted assets, which would be between $67 billion and $83 billion over four years — or triple the $25 billion sold over the past four years.
Tier II bank debt is part of a requirement which says banks have to hold capital to protect depositors and senior bondholders against losses. This is so that taxpayers don’t have to bail-out the banks in the future.
Are CBA and Westpac buys today?
Both CBA and Westpac are more reliant on Australia’s housing market than the other two big banks, which could be a worry as the property prices in Sydney and Melbourne are falling right now.
Banks are facing a number of headwinds, including hundreds of millions of dollars of remediation costs from the Royal Commission. Our analyst recently questioned if NAB’s 8% dividend is worth the risk.
I think the big banks have little growth prospects at the moment, whereas there are some ASX shares, like the shares revealed in the free report below, that have excellent growth plans.
2 ASX rapid growth shares to consider
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