BFCSA Blog

Royal commission risks missing mark on deeper issues The Australian 12:00am February 2, 2019 Adam Creighton   On the day the draft report of the royal commission into financial services was released last year, banks’ share prices jumped around 3 per cent. “The banks have gone to the edge of what is permitted, and too often beyond that limit (as a result of) greed — the pursuit of short-term profit at the expense of basic standards of honesty,” the former High Court justice Ken Hayne wrote, adding that “pursuit of profit has trumped consideration of how the profit is made”. The report was rhetorically damning but investors, it seemed, didn’t see anything that would threaten the lush rivers of gold flowing into the financial services sector, which, at 9 per cent of GDP, is growing and the largest sector of the economy by a big margin. Release of the final report...

Hedge funds sell and short banks ahead of banking royal commission final report Australian Financial Review01 Feb 2019 11:57 AM James Frost   Bank stocks stumbled on Friday as hedge funds and international investors bet the publication of Commissioner Ken Hayne's final recommendations would provide a catalyst for further falls. Photographs released by the Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove at midday on Friday show Commissioner Hayne delivering three-volumes – about the size of a phone book – to Government House alongside the royal commission's CEO Toni Pirani. As speculation about the contents of the report intensifies ahead of its release to the public on Monday afternoon, analysts at Macquarie say the size of the bets being made against the banks by institutional investors have been ramped up significantly since the start of October. Analysis shows international speculators expecting sweeping and punitive changes have upped the ante with short bets against the banks...

Restoring trust in Australia's banks Australian Financial Review31 Jan 2019 11:45 PM Josh Frydenberg Josh Frydenberg is the federal Treasurer.   Today, Commissioner Kenneth Hayne will present to the Governor-General his final report into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. It follows a year-long inquiry including 68 days of hearings, calling over 130 witnesses and reviewing more than 10,000 public submissions. The royal commission has shone a light on misconduct in the financial sector, exposing a level of compliance that fell below community expectations. The interim report released in September and subsequent hearings have highlighted the law as being too complex, the regulators too passive and too often a culture permeating the financial services sector that puts profits before people. Examples of fees for no service, fees charged to dead people and the misselling of insurance to tens of thousands of customers, even though they were ineligible to...

Scott Morrison warns against rash response to banking royal commission Sydney Morning Herald 31 January 2019 11:45pm Bevan Shields   EXCLUSIVE  Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the Australian economy faces "significant consequences" if the banking royal commission triggers a credit crunch, while warning an election contest over which party is tougher on the beleaguered financial services industry risks undermining the system. Mr Morrison, who was treasurer when the Coalition ordered the royal commission despite opposing an inquiry for years, predicted former High Court justice Kenneth Hayne’s final report would contain "legitimate" criticism of the government's financial regulators when publicly released on Monday. However, he rejected claims thousands of victims of misconduct had been overlooked during last year's public hearings and pledged to put consumers at the heart of his government’s response. "It will be a question of what suggestions or measures they put on the table but I will be very...

Bank execs ‘off to jail, I hope’: keen interest in Hayne report The Australian 12:00am February 1, 2019 Ben Butler   EXCLUSIVE  Australians are keenly awaiting the outcome of the financial services royal commission and overwhelmingly believe the recom­mendations of the inquiry will be good for ordinary people, according to polling exclusively obtained by The Australian. The polling, conducted for the industry superannuation sector, reflects political pressure on the Morrison government not to backslide on its commitment to adopt in full the recommendations that are expected to reshape the finance industry, to be handed to it by commissioner Kenneth Hayne today. It also reveals changing community attitudes towards the royal commission and the finance industry as hearings dominated headlines last year, shifting from complaints that the inquiry was toothless “froth and bubble” in February through to a consensus that its hearings had revealed widespread “dishonesty” among the banks and a need...

NAB customers unhappy with Jeff Kennett’s ‘harsh’ mediation approach The Australian 12:00am February 1, 2019 Joyce Moullakis   EXCLUSIVE  The lion’s share of a group of customers involved in long-running disputes with National Australia Bank have refused to deal with its appointed arbitrator Jeff Kennett, claiming he has limited knowledge of banking and took a harsh approach. The breakdown in the mediation process for the bulk of the 25 cases involving Mr Kennett, the former Victorian premier and chairman of Beyondblue, was communicated to NAB on January 18 ahead of him completing his assessments. A spokesman for longstanding aggrieved NAB customers, Dr Peter Brandson, who founded the group Bank Reform Now, said many felt Mr Kennett wasn’t truly independent, was harsh with people and was “out of his depth” in complex banking cases. “By the time people decided to pull the plug on Jeff they felt that they were not getting...

ASIC planning to issue new responsible lending guidance following Hayne Australian Financial Review 31 Jan 2019 11:00 PM James Eyers   The corporate regulator is set to clarify how lenders should be meeting their responsible lending obligations, in a move that may entrench a modified version of the controversial Household Expenditure Measure and allow for technology to help banks make faster decisions. With the final report of the banking royal commission, to be released on Monday, expected to provide a verdict on whether banks are doing enough to check customers' living expenses before they lend, banks want more guidance from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission to avoid prosecutions. In the weeks after the final report lands, ASIC will release a revised, draft "Regulatory Guide 209", which is likely to be one of the first policy responses by regulators to the final report and will help to quell growing confusion among...

Half of all home loan requests knocked back The Australian 12:00am February 1, 2019 Turi Condon   EXCLUSIVE  The major banks are rejecting up to half of all home loan appli­cations as uncertainty surrounding the upcoming recommen­dations of the banking royal commission comes to a head, says finance and real estate executive Sam White. Mr White, the chairman of mortgage broker Loan Market and deputy chairman of the Ray White real estate group, said even the banks’ credit teams were unsur­e of their lending standards. “There’s no upside in saying yes, only downside, so it’s easier to say no,” he told The ­Australian. “For most of the major lender­s — the big four banks — the decline rates would be above 40 per cent at the moment.” In a normal market, 15-20 per cent of loans would be knocked back, he said: “Even in the GFC, it was nothing like this.’’...

Banks, regulators to blame for house price falls: Deloitte's Chris Richardson Australian Financial Review 31 Jan 2019 1:14 PM Michael Bleby, Su-Lin Tan   Banks that flipped from lending too much to lending too little and regulators that were too slow to spot the risks of record-low lending rates were both to blame for current housing price declines, Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said. Lenders that suddenly ended their previously generous credit policies were part of the cause but so were central bank and banking regulators who were too slow to see that cutting interest rates to record lows - to stimulate activity at a time of slowing Chinese economy - would put a rocket under the east coast-centred national housing market, Mr Richardson said. The veteran economist's comments lay more of the blame for the current housing slowdown on banks than Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer who argued banks...

Property prices still falling, says Meriton’s Harry Triguboff The Australian 12:00am January 31, 2019 Turi Condon   EXCLUSIVE  This year could see the housing market fall into a worse state than 2018, with the downturn flowing through to the broader economy, according to billionaire developer Harry Triguboff. The lack of foreign buyers and the banks’ restrictions on lending had seen prices fall about 15 per cent in Sydney, the Meriton Apartments founder said. “It may be as bad as last year, it may be worse,” he said of the outlook for 2019. While foreign buyers were returning, it was only in small numbers and Australian buyers were staying away, he said. “Australia is completely dependent on the Chinese (buyers),” he said. The slowdown in construction and lower rate of home sales would have a deeper effect on other sectors this year, he said. “It must affect the broader economy,” Mr Triguboff...

Credit crunch to trigger worst housing downturn since 1890: Endeavour Australian Financial Review 30 Jan 2019 7:00 PM Jonathan Shapiro   Property prices could ultimately fall by 25 to 30 per cent from their peak, marking the worst downturn since 1890, according to an independent equity market analyst who has modelled the impact of tighter lending standards likely to result from the Hayne royal commission. Douglas Orr of Endeavour Equity Strategy, last year predicted property prices would fall 20 per cent. But he has now downgraded his forecast based on the "new revelation" late last year that all, or almost all, mortgages written between 2012 and 2016 had used the Household Expenditure Measure to assess borrower expenses. He warned of a rise in loan defaults as recent buyers found themselves in negative equity. Applying a more realistic benchmark would reduce the borrowing capacity of high-income householders by half, thus curtailing their...

Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer says banks 'not to blame' for house slump Australian Financial Review 30 Jan 2019 11:00 PM James Frost   EXCLUSIVE  Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer has rejected "doom and gloom" claims that the big banks are worsening the housing price slump by cutting off credit amid the glare of the royal commission. But he warns that one of the unintended consequences of the regulatory crackdown on residential lending has been to "penalise" smaller business which rely on their homes as security. He cautions that Labor's proposed tightening of tax breaks for negatively geared property has given investors further 'reason to pause', particularly in the lead up to an election. And he warns that stricter supervision of banks risks spilling the excess demand to shadow banks with riskier lending standards. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg have urged the banks to keep credit flowing to a...

Wages stagnating, house prices falling and maybe even a recession: The VERY grim outlook for Australia's economy in 2019 Daily Mail Australia16:01 AEDT, 30 January 2019 Alex Chapman   Plummeting house prices, inactive wages and a slowdown in market growth has a panel of economists concerned that Australia is heading towards a recession. The forecast from the 19 economists gathered from universities across Australia is bleak, with the consensus being a 25 per cent chance of a recession within two years of the upcoming May federal election. One expert in particular, Steve Keen, formerly of the University of Western Sydney and now of University College in London, has almost guaranteed a recession, saying it's 95 per cent likely. The panel, gathered by The Conversation, forecast bleak times following the federal election. No recovery in wage growth, an abysmal unemployment rate, nosediving housing market and budget deficit are all major points of...

Banks under fire: investigations laid bare by regulator The Australian 12:00am January 30, 2019  Ben Butler     EXCLUSIVE  The powerful committee overseeing the corporate regulator’s enforcement activities approved the criminal prosecution of NAB for failing to report serious breaches of its licence in June last year, banking royal commission documents reveal. The investigation into NAB is among Australian Securities & Investments Commission operations detailed in minutes of the regulator’s enforcement committee that also reveal an ongoing inquiry into loan fraud in the bank’s greater Western Sydney branches and the authority’s anger at Westpac over “lack of transparency”. NAB’s repeated failure to report serious breaches of its financial services licences to ASIC within 10 days, as the law requires, was among misdeeds by the bank and its subsidiaries exposed during royal commission hearings in August. Allegations that NAB filed at least 110 breach reports late formed part of a wide-ranging ASIC...

CYBG CFO Ian Smith warns of distortions from Hayne Australian Financial Review 29 Jan 2019 11:00 PM James Frost   EXCLUSIVE  The chief financial officer of Britain's fifth-largest bank has warned of unintended consequences flowing from recommendations made by Commissioner Kenneth Hayne in the banking royal commission final report, due to be handed to the government on Friday. Ian Smith, the chief financial officer of Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank (CYBG), told The Australian Financial Review that although a tougher regime was necessary to stop bad behaviour inside the banks, any proposed changes had to be thought through carefully and monitored. Regulators have hit Britain's banking sector with massive amounts of reform following the too-big-to-fail policy responses brought about by the global financial crisis. While much of that was overdue, measures have also led to distortions in the lending market and emboldened an aggressive new breed of customer advocate who can do...

APRA defends its housing market intervention Australian Financial Review 29 Jan 2019 12:00 AM James Eyers   The prudential supervisor has rejected attacks by the Productivity Commission and competition regulator that its controversial housing lending caps delivered a profit windfall to the major banks and failed to consider the impact on smaller lenders. In an unusual self-assessment of its macroprudential policies less than a week before the government releases the Hayne inquiry, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority argues its intervention in housing markets prompted a "sustained reduction in higher risk forms of lending" and has "not had an undue impact on credit availability". APRA introduced a 10 per cent limit on annual grow in loans to property investors in 2014 and a 30 per cent limit on interest-only loans as a proportion of new lending in 2017. Responding to criticism late last year from Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod...

Mortgage brokers, small lenders fear Hayne will deliver CBA a profit windfall Australian Financial Review 28 Jan 2019 11:00 PM James Eyers   Mortgage brokers and small lenders warn that a royal commission-led overhaul of the fees brokers can charge will be bad for borrowers and benefit the big four banks, especially the nation's largest, Commonwealth Bank. It would be ironic if the Hayne inquiry targeting misconduct in the major banks ended up enhancing their market power, but mortgage brokers and non-bank lenders are concerned that's precisely what will happen if the industry remuneration model shifts to a flat fee and eliminates trailing commissions. Mortgage brokers expect the royal commission's final report, due with the government on Friday, could recommend lenders – or customers – pay brokers a flat fee at a lower rate than current upfront and trailing commissions. Critics of the status quo say commissions lead brokers to push...

RBA backflip needed to end banks’ profit-margin pain The West Australian 28 January 2019 1:28PM Gareth Costa   Banks know there is minimal sympathy for their problems in the current socio-economic environment, but the silent scream emanating from interbank funding markets is a warning that all is far from well. The whimper by National Australia Bank this week as it buckled under sustained liquidity constraints by passing on rising funding costs to mortgage holders has been the latest audible evidence of the widening gulf between the Reserve Bank cash rate at 1.5 per cent and the six-month bank bill swap rate currently at 2.19 per cent. The difference of 75 points at year-end was close to the peak in 2008 shortly before the Reserve was forced to slash rates from 7.25 per cent to 3 per cent in less than a year, and more than levels in late 2011 before the...

Big four banks just creating piles of money The Australian 12:00am January 29, 2019 Adam Creighton   As the final report of the royal commission into financial services nears, top bankers should at least be relieved the real source of their power — the ability to create money out of thin air — will be ­unaffected. The terms of the royal commission were set to avoid deeper questions about the structure and role of banks, an issue of extraordinary importance which receives almost no public attention. Yet, somewhat mysteriously, one by one central banks around the world have started revealing how money is really created, destroying the furphy that banks are “intermediaries” lending deposits out to borrowers. The vast bulk of money in Australia and elsewhere has been ­created by banks, not the government or the Reserve Bank. Unfortunately the bulk of this new money has been used to purchase existing...

Kenneth Hayne's banking royal commission report alone can't change banking's greedy philosophy ABC News29 January 2019 Ian Verrender   When Kenneth Hayne spins down the driveway at Yarralumla on Friday morning with a freshly minted copy of his latest tome for His Excellency the Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, it will mark the beginning of a new era. Well, at least for a little while. Given the extreme lack of resources and the extraordinary time constraints, the extent of the revelations unearthed by Mr Hayne's Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry has been nothing short of breathtaking. Even if the commissioner's recommendations are implemented in full, permanent change will be more difficult to achieve. For it has always been difficult for any political edifice to withstand a concerted onslaught from the sheer weight of wealth. Crime and punishment Theft. It's such a harsh word. So emotive...