Israeli Finance Minister opens banking market

Israel's Finance Minister wants to increase competition in the country's banking sector by bringing opening the market to foreign banks. Smotrich is looking at two international banks for that purpose.

"The banking system in Israel is one of the most concentrated in the world," he told the Knesset. "This is reflected in the scope of services, the amount of credit, the quality of services and the cost of services."

"Ultimately, the real solution to the banking issue is competition," added Smotrich. "Since we cannot wait for the sophisticated competition to develop, because people are already 'suffocating' today, we are already making various moves ourselves."

Israelis have been complaining for years about high bank fees for just about everything such as fees for just having an ATM card, fees for every time one takes cash out of an ATM, fees for depositing cash and more.