your bank account* the vault.

where your deposits go

The Reserve Bank of Australia describes the business in one line: banks “collect savings from households and businesses (savers) and use these funds to make loans to those who want to borrow (borrowers)”. Deposits make up around two-thirds of Australian banks’ funding.

Australia no longer requires banks to keep a minimum share of deposits in reserve. On APRA’s figures for 30 June 2026 the four major banks had $3.62 trillion out in loans against $3.56 trillion in deposits, a little more than a dollar lent for every dollar deposited. Housing loans were 63% of that lending.

hold on to this one

what the vault is

A deposit is the bank’s promise to pay you back when you ask. The Reserve Bank’s explainer on money calls deposit balances “liabilities of privately owned financial institutions”.

what holds up

The New Payments Platform launched in February 2018 and, in the Reserve Bank’s words, gives “near real-time funds availability to the recipient, on a 24/7 basis”. Twelve deposit-taking institutions funded the build, and each of the four major banks has a director on the board of Australian Payments Plus, which runs it and PayID. Forrester’s 2025 review of the four banks’ apps noted that CommBank and NAB pause a payment when a potential scam is detected.

The deposit guarantee is the Financial Claims Scheme, an Australian Government scheme set up during the 2008 global financial crisis. It protects deposits up to $250,000 per account holder per ADIAuthorised deposit-taking institution: a bank, building society or credit union that APRA, the prudential regulator, has authorised to take deposits.: each bank, building society or credit union incorporated in Australia. Transaction, savings and term deposit accounts are covered; accounts in a foreign currency are outside it. It pays only if the Government activates it after an institution fails. And the limit applies to each licence rather than each brand: APRA’s own example is that Bankwest is part of Commonwealth Bank and St George is part of Westpac.

the asterisk: the profit

Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB and ANZ held $5.13 trillion in total assets at 30 June 2026, on APRA’s quarterly figures. On its monthly figures for August 2026 they held 72% of the $1.77 trillion Australian households had on deposit.

In the 2025 financial year the four reported a combined profit after tax of $29.8 billion, on KPMG’s analysis of their results. That figure is profit, what is left after costs and tax. Their income for the year was $93.9 billion. The Australian Bureau of Statistics put the population at 27.6 million at 30 June 2025, which makes the profit about $1,080 a person.

what the account pays you

A transfer from a bank app takes one tap, and the account behind it pays close to nothing. The Reserve Bank’s table of advertised deposit rates (F4) puts the average rate on a transaction account at the five largest banks at 0.00% at the end of August 2026. The cash rate target was 4.35% that day and has been 4.60% since 30 September 2026.

Savings accounts pay more. The same table shows 3.10% on online savers and 4.80% on bonus savers, a rate paid only in a month with a deposit and no withdrawals.

The bank’s side of it is the net interest marginThe gap between the interest a bank earns on its loans and what it pays for deposits and other funding, as a share of the assets that earn interest.. KPMG’s analysis puts the four banks’ average at 1.83% for the 2025 financial year. Net interest income was $78.8 billion of their $93.9 billion in income.

the fossil fuel lending

In November 2025 the advocacy group Market Forces reported that the four banks had provided $43.4 billion to the world’s major coal, oil and gas companies since the Paris Agreement. The count runs from 1 January 2016 to 1 September 2025 and covers project and corporate loans and bonds to companies on Urgewald’s exit lists of coal, oil and gas companies.

The four differ. Market Forces attributes more than $15.9 billion to ANZ and says ANZ and Westpac made up over 80% of the lending across 2024 and 2025. It says Commonwealth Bank’s requirement that fossil fuel clients disclose transition plans aligned with Paris has cut its financing, with lending exposure to oil and gas producers and explorers down 75% in three years.

ANZ told AAP it “is a significant lender to the energy sector, which is the most carbon intensive part of the global economy”, and that its ambition is net zero financed emissions in line with Paris. Market Forces says none of the four banks disputed taking part in the deals.

For scale at home, Geoscience Australia ranks Australia second in the world for coal exports, behind Indonesia.

the royal commission

Commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s final report, tabled on 4 February 2019, records that Count Financial, then a Commonwealth Bank business, had charged ongoing fees to clients who had died. ASIC tallied the compensation for fees for no service and non-compliant advice: $4.7 billion paid or offered by 31 December 2022 by six institutions, the four major banks plus AMP and Macquarie.

Under the anti-money laundering law, the Federal Court ordered Commonwealth Bank to pay $700 million in June 2018 after the bank admitted, among other failures, the late filing of 53,506 threshold transaction reports for cash deposits. Its chief executive called the mistakes “not deliberate” and apologised. The court ordered Westpac to pay $1.3 billion in October 2020, after Westpac admitted more than 23 million contraventions, including failing to carry out “appropriate customer due diligence in relation to suspicious transactions associated with possible child exploitation”.

what this means for your money

Banks differ, and some are changing. Bank Australia is customer-owned and says it does not lend “to coal, gas or oil extraction or fossil fuel electricity generation”, under its responsible banking policy. Up, a brand of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and ING Australia advertise everyday accounts with no monthly fee and no international transaction fee of their own.

The question is whether your bank’s defaults are the ones you would have chosen with all of this in front of you. The same question applies to the super fund your employer picked.

inaam is not a bank and a managed fund is not a savings account. The fund carries risk, your capital is not guaranteed, and money you might need next month does not belong in it. What inaam does hold itself to is the same reading this page is asking of a bank: every company in the fund is named in the app, with the reason it got in and the trade-off next to it. The three checks are on how it works, and the five themes members customise are on investment areas. The subscription is $10 a month, which is $120 a year, and it is separate from the money you invest. The minimum to invest in the fund is $100. Sign-up happens in the app, not on this website. SMSFs and family trusts are welcome.

key sources

KPMG · APRA · Reserve Bank · Market Forces · Royal Commission · ASIC · AUSTRAC