I'm in Australia where there's a system of dividend imputation. That means that together with dividends one will receive franking credits representing tax that a company has already paid. This has another advantage of really benefitting shareholders on a low income, few as there may be. The corporate tax rate is 30%. The highest marginal tax rate for the median income earner is 32.5%, meaning dividends, as paid out, will typically attract an effective 2.5% tax. Wonderful.
For someone receiving 70c in dividends and earning under $18k a year, they will get another 30c back through their tax return.
It's a pretty nice system and it's astonishing to me that the vast majority of other countries don't do this. It also means that domestic shareholders are advantaged over foreign ones.
Then there's also the government restriction on mergers/acquisitions among the four big banks, which provides stability, consumer benefits, a nice dividend for the shareholders - it provides an actual desire by the banks to create value.