| Friday, April 27, 2012 6:22 AM

During the 90s Saint Jim Anderton was a frustrated man. He hated the idea that the Ocker shockers were bleeding us dry. He could never understand why interest rates across the ditch were so much lower than they were on this side of it when the same banks were offering them.

The People's Bank, the Bank of New Zealand, had long since been sold to the Ockers.

So there was only one thing for it, start our own bank.

New Zealand Post has the infrastructure, Postshops all over the country, and as part of his deal with the incoming Labour lot, the then Alliance leader made the bank a prerequisite of a coalition deal.

Saint Jim became the bank's first customer, opening a savings account with a sizeable cheque.

The incoming Finance Minister wasn't at all keen on the bank. Savage Mikey Cullen obviously never thought it would work but had to suck it up and go with the Alliance flow.

Since then customers have been flooding through the doors, around $700,000 of them now have their green cards and they're happy the bank's profits are remaining on this side of the ditch, unlike the other four big Ocker owned trading banks.

But in a supreme irony the man who's in charge of our bank is none other than Savage Mickey himself, as chairman of the umbrella company NZ Post.

Not only has he had to grit his dentures and bear it, he's now having to go cap in hand to his old adversaries asking them for money to capitalize the bank. If it's to complete with the big Aussie players they need more cash to do it.

In a letter to the Minister in charge of state assets Tony Ryall, Savage Mickey said Kiwibank's achieved excellent growth since its inception and remains the strongest growth engine in the Post group.

But without capital it can't compete and we all know the Government's skint.

A pity really, considering if it was on a level playing field then it could compete against the Government's own banker Westpac!