The ongoing competition for retail deposits, cheap mortgages and lower bank fees are benefiting Australian consumers, said ANZ Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) chief executive Mike Smith.

Speaking to reporters at the kick off of the banking industry's interim earnings season on Thursday, Smith said that before the global financial meltdown, almost everybody was taking risks, including them.

But those who are more prone to risk takings are institutional investors and less from consumers.

"The consumer is actually getting pretty good value for money right now," he declared.

He revealed that the bank's cash earning more than doubled to 2.376 billion as at March 31, 2010 or during the first half of fiscal 2010. This is due to the increase in net interest income which grew to $5.192 billion.

However, he said most of the gains were due to the re-pricing of the bank's corporate loan book introduced over the past year. This means business customers were subsidising mortgage and other retail borrowers,

Smith said ANZ is focused in aligning its lending rates with the interest rates implemented by the Reserve Bank of Australia. He said the bank does not want to go above the official interest rates of the central bank.

"I think it is in everybody's best interest to keep rates as low as we can for the foreseeable future," he added.