The banks here are crooks, and think nothing of selling a $300k house for $20K , and then demand fees for only selling the house for the amount owed.
This is relevant because? ...
People and companies who borrow money do so with a promise to repay the debt. The money lent is other peoples money not the banks money.
Are you suggesting the banks should play fast and lose with depositors money and just kiss it goodbye? Some of it is mine.
Door swings both ways, banks are obliged to ensure money loaned is able to be repaid. The problems with DSE didn't appear overnight, it was in trouble more than 2 years ago when woolworth's sold it. Who would lend hundreds of millions to a company in such a poor condition ?
The key point is repay the debt, the rest of the money belongs to someone else.
In this case many people are owed money, the idea should be to repay as much of the debt as possible.
For instance, you could pay off more debt by giving those with giftcards the $100 worth of stuff from the store (retail prices), rather than selling it at auction for $10.
Banks are insured against losses anyway, much unlike the staff and customers of DSE who will likely get screwed.
To answer your question, the banks should just kiss this year's profit goodbye (actually 10% of it). Better that than yet another fall in consumer confidence, and large losses in the active part of the economy the people who actually spend their money (workers, customers, people who got cheated out of christmas).