Banks in Australia contributed a meagre A$158 million to private equity firms in the 2011/12 financial year, a survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found. And they committed a further $202 million of future contributions to PE firms. Overall, private equity firms collected $33.8 billion from investors that year, the ABS said, roughly the same as the year before.Bank commitments to PE firms peaked at around $500 million in each of 2005/06 and 2007/08. Banks chipped in no money to the PE sector in the three years to 2010/11.