'Four pillars' banking policy redundant: Productivity Commission

The Productivity Commission has questioned the effectiveness of the decades-old "four pillars" banking policy. It comes as a banking Royal Commission is scheduled to begin next week, and as bank executives begin to face closer scrutiny. The so called "four pillars" policy was introduced 1990 by Labor treasurer Paul Keating. It aimed at maintaining a competitive market by preventing mergers between Australia's major banks - the Commonwealth, Westpac, National Australia and A-N-Z . Now, a draft Productivity Commission report into financial sector competition is questioning the policy, describing it as "ad hoc" and "redundant". Instead, it suggests the policy may have "eroded competition by embedding a fixed market structure". But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he's not looking to abandon the policy. This feature reveals more details.