WakeUpWorld July 29 2013
What do Australia’s “Big 4″ banks have in common?
NAB, ANZ, Westpac & Commonwealth Bank are publicly listed companies. So that means they have shareholders right? Well did you know that the top 4 shareholders in each of the Big 4 are in fact the same?
Although Australia’s Big 4 promote competitiveness amongst themselves, they are all owned by the same (mostly foreign) financial interests; specifically HSBC Custody Nominees, J P Morgan Nominees Aus Ltd, National Nominees Ltd and Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd.
Startlingly, smaller competitors like St. George and Aussie Home Loans – who claim to offer consumers a “fair go” – are also subsidiaries of the same corporate giants.
Source: http://www.spankyourbank.com.au
The above information can be gathered from the annual reports of these banking giants. But these figures are not made readily available to anyone with internet access and a few search engine terms. No, the banks use measures such as publishing these details in image format, tucked neatly away on their websites so as not to be found by search terms or even Google’s tentacles.
Search engines only search for text, so an image file saved under an innocuous name won’t be found by prying eyes, whereas the same details loaded into a table on a their website would.