Australia's Implicit Deposit Insurance — Should It Be Reconsidered?

Most major developed countries have bank deposit insurance; the European Parliament recently mandated it for all member countries. One of the characteristics of most deposit insurance schemes to protect depositors is that the banking industry funds the scheme through assessments. Interestingly, Australia does not have explicit deposit insurance and to date there has been little public debate on this subject. This paper proposes that such a debate should be initiated.