Commonwealth Bank of Australia buys BankWest

Commonwealth Bank of Australia has agreed to buy British bank HBOS's Australian unit BankWest for A$2.1 bln, to boost its market share in fast-growing Western Australia. CBA said it would raise A$2 billion of Tier 1 capital in an institutional placement of securities to help fund the BankWest deal.

Well good on the CBA buying what i always thought was one of Australia's best banks - seams the biggest loser out of the credit crunch is the customer as choice and competition is disappearing out of the market. All we need now is a Crude Oil crisis and Shell and BP can merge funded by the tax payer and they can return billion pound profits.

This is just one big mess

But on a positive note if you are migrating to Australia the pounds to Australian Dollar exchange rate has rallied yet again today and you can Buy Australian Dollars at 2.5500

Buy for now

IMS Foreign Exchange