Banking lobby tells industry to lift its game

ASIC’s report into compliance with breach reporting obligations showed that banks were taking years to identify a breach and in many cases were late to tell ASIC of the breach.

The ABA’s chief executive, Anna Bligh, said the report was a wake-up call to the banks to lift their game in fixing issues in their business.

“This investigation shows that banks' efforts to identify issues, report them to ASIC and compensate customers is not good enough,” she said.

Ms Bligh said customers expected the problems to be identified and solved but the report showed that it was not happening.

“The industry has fully co-operated with the ASIC Enforcement Review and has supported changes including increasing penalties and introducing a civil penalty in addition to the criminal offence for failing to report within the required time frame,” she said.

The government also announced dedicated staff for onsite monitoring in the four main banks and AMP to beef up supervision, and the industry welcomes the oversight, said Ms Bligh.

“This new initiative and others was welcomed by the industry who are working proactively and in good faith with ASIC to improve monitoring and increase transparency within the sector,” she said.

Eliot Hastie

Eliot Hastie is a journalist at Momentum Media, writing primarily for its wealth and financial services platforms. 

Eliot joined the team in 2018 having previously written on Real Estate Business with Momentum Media as well.

Eliot graduated from the University of Westminster, UK with a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism).

You can email him on: [email protected]