The Australian financial system has developed rapidly over the past 20 years or so, with deregulation being a major driver of change. Deregulation started in the late 1970s with the gradual removal of controls over bank interest rates.
It picked up speed in the early 1980s with the removal of other controls on banks, freeing up interest rates on government securities (by adopting tender arrangements for new issues), floating the exchange rate and opening up the banking system, in the mid 1980s, to foreign competition.