The Turnbull government's economic team is out in force spruiking planned changes to the nation's financial system.
Treasurer Scott Morrison, his assistant Kelly O'Dwyer and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann have hit the airwaves promoting moves to end surcharge gouging of credit card transactions and a more competitive superannuation sector.
But they also had to defend the possibility banks may recoup the costs of maintaining higher capital holdings by raising mortgage rates.
Senator Cormann said Westpac's decision to lift its variable rate by 20 basis points last week was a commercial one.
"All of the advice available to the government is the extent of the increase in the interest rate ... was beyond what was required to deal with the additional capital requirements," he told ABC radio on Wednesday.
His advice to Westpac customers is to shop around for a more competitive rate.
Senator Cormann also played down suggestions that merchants would simply hike the price of goods and services to work around a ban on unfair credit card surcharges.
The government estimates an appropriate surcharge is around 0.5 per cent on each transaction.
Mr Morrison skirted around a suggestion by the Greens that the ban on unfair surcharges be extended to ATM withdrawals.
If customers didn't like paying the $2 fee, they could always use their own bank's terminal to avoid incurring the surcharge, he told ABC radio.
Greens MP Adam Bandt said banks rake in at least $600 million a year from ATM fees.
"As a result, the big four banks are going to continue to make record profits," he told reporters in Canberra.
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