The fierce competition between the nation’s heavyweight banks was evident in the media this week, well, at least in Sydney.

The battle for the hearts and minds of Australian consumers reached fever pitch with three of the four big banks dominating advertising spend on Tuesday in the city’s mainstay publication, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).

A casual observer could infer that (a) only banks advertise in Australian newspapers – given the limited presence of other industry heavyweights and the fact the SMH donated a three-quarter page to an in-house ad and (b) that if this is the state of advertising in Australian news paper publishing then Fairfax, owner of the SMH, is well and well and truly up the wazoo.

It’s worth noting that the cover price of the paper ($1.40) is only 17% less than buying a share in the paper ($1.70).

It seems curious too that the chairman of Fairfax, Ron Walker, is seeking re-election in the position after what can at best be described as a pretty inglorious period for the business as it appears to have fundamentally bungled away a series of chances to remain a publishing powerhouse.

In any case back to the advertisements.

In what is perhaps a fitting metaphor, given pilot results of a business banking shadow shop CoreData is conducting – Commonwealth Bank was front and centre with its continued push of business banking, entreating businesses in for a financial health check..

But what was curious were the two advertisements being run by both NAB and ANZ.

NAB’s half-page full colour effort on the inside front cover was focusing on term deposits.

This is curious for two reasons – the first is that it already has a considerable investment in UBank, which is focussed on deposit taking and is running both a very attractive rate (5.11%) and a TV and online campaign and is by all account sucking up deposit cash like a brand new Dyson vacuum cleaner.

So why the ad from NAB? Is there no central savings strategy at the bank? Or are the businesses at war with each other? Or are they short of cash? Given that they missed out on the majority of notable flows over the past 18 months and flight to cash is there now a serious need to play catch up? Whatever the case it looks clumsy.

ANZ then weighed in shortly afterwards with an ad about fees disappearing, 27 of them to be exact. Yet, the fees to be clear aren’t disappearing now but are being removed by December 27.

Now, ANZ’s breathy tag line from its TV ads and is watermarked under the bank’s brand in all its print ads doesn’t apparently actually mean ‘now’. It means, well, in the next couple of months.

As for which fees are going? The ad doesn’t specify that, it just says 27 of them are going…

Next meanwhile is a quarter-page from CBA-owned Colonial First State, which is marketing itself as Australia’s largest fund manager – it seems on the proviso that size equals security and in the wake of the financial crisis, security is a good thing.