BFCSA Blog

Move quickly and firmly on Hayne proposals, British inquiry veterans warn Australian Financial Review Feb 13, 2019 10.09am Hans van Leeuwen   Banking executives and regulators have to have their feet held to the fire if an inquiry like the Hayne royal commission is going to deliver meaningful and long-term change, according to veterans of Britain's own decade of banking commissions and reforms. As Australia grapples with the political and policy fallout of the Hayne commission, British politicians and experts who were involved in high-profile banking misconduct inquiries over the past decade warn that reform momentum can quickly fade – unless enforcement officials are prodded to use their teeth, and banking chiefs are held sharply to account for misconduct on their watch. The experience of MPs who presided over the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards – a year-long investigation set up in mid-2012 to tackle banking misconduct – suggests the Australian...

Banking royal commission: Basel's Bill Coen says pay supervisors like bankers Australian Financial Review Feb 13, 2019 12:00am James Eyers   The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority will find it tough going to meet the Hayne royal commission recommendations, says the world's most senior banking regulator, given most global banking watchdogs are struggling to define and measure culture and non-financial risks. Bill Coen, secretary-general of the international Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, also says insufficient regulatory resources could hinder efforts to implement the recommendations. The focus of global prudential supervisors has shifted from mostly quantitative work to making judgments about the behaviour and personalities of bankers – requiring supervisors with more skills and experience. As a result, pay levels for bank supervisors will need to rise substantially, says Coen, who is visiting Sydney this week. APRA has warned it would take several years to lift supervision of bank culture to the level...

Shadow banks swoop as five lenders quit sub-prime home loans Australian Financial Review Feb 13, 2019 12.45pm Duncan Hughes   Digital home-loan lender Tic:Toc is launching into the sub-prime mortgage market targeting small business owners as five other lenders quit the sector claiming "industry changes". Tic:Toc's move follows stakes being taken in the online lender by Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia and La Trobe Financial, which is part of the US investment giant Blackstone Group. Other major lenders, including Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Bank of Queensland, pulled out of the sector to be replaced by regulation-lite shadow banks, including Pepper Money and Resimac. Adelaide Bank, Perth-based Bluebay Home Loans and Resolve Finance's mortgage division are also quitting the sub-prime sector blaming changing marketing and funding conditions. The move comes amid growing controversy about a credit squeeze for small business operators, debate about the future of mortgage brokers as a distribution channel...

The ACCC's cartel probe into Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC 'difficult to prove' Australian Financial Review Feb 12, 2019 11.00pm (Updated Feb 13, 5.08pm) Edmund Tadros, Tom McIlroy   EXCLUSIVE  The competition regulator will be looking for evidence Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC have co-ordinated their price, charging method or even their decisions around bidding on government work as part of its probe into the activities of the big four consulting firms, experts say. But they warn that cartel and anti-competitive behaviour is difficult to prove with some sceptical the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will find any evidence of wrongdoing by the firms. The Australian Financial Reviewrevealed on Wednesday the ACCC has asked the four firms for information including engagement letters, draft proposals and other notes related to their public sector work as part of preliminary inquiries to see if a formal investigation into their actions is warranted. The firms have...

AWU raids: Michaelia Cash ex-aide told Justice Minister’s staffer, both tipped off media The Australian 12:50pm February 13, 2019 Ewin Hannan   Michaelia Cash’s former media adviser David De Garis has revealed he gave advance notice of raids on the Australian Workers’ Union to a staffer with Justice Minister Michael Keenan and they both tipped off media ahead of the raids. Mr De Garis told the Federal Court today he contacted a media adviser in Mr Keenan’s office, Michael Tetlow, after he was told about the imminent raids by Senator Cash’s chief of staff, Ben Davies. After they discussed how to disseminate the information to the media, Mr De Garis said he contacted newspaper reporters and Mr Tetlow contacted television journalists to tell them about the raids later that day. Mr De Garis said he telephoned journalists from The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and Fairfax. Under questioning from AWU lawyer Herman...

Scott Morrison tries to head off Bob Katter revolt over banking royal commission Australian Financial Review Feb 11, 2019 9.00pm Phillip Coorey   Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not ruled out axing a $234 million deal with Bob Katter if the independent sided with Labor and forced a recall of Parliament to start dealing with the recommendations of the banking royal commission. With Labor needing an absolute majority of 76 votes to schedule two extra sitting weeks in March, Mr Morrison's office has been in touch with Mr Katter to try to talk him out of supporting the motion, which would be binding on the government if passed. It is understood Mr Katter has told the government what he is saying publicly – that he is open to supporting the motion that could be put to Parliament this week. On Monday, his support for the motion appeared to strengthen with a...

APRA holds back on Hayne rebuild The Australian 12:00am February 12, 2019 Ben Butler, Joyce Moullakis   The prudential regulator has refused to say when it will implement a key recommendation of the Hayne royal commission requiring it to overhaul its supervision of banks and super funds to focus on misconduct and poor culture. In its response to royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s final report, released last week, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said it would implement nine of the 10 recommendations affecting it by 2020. However, it gave no time frame to bring in Mr Hayne’s recommendation that it change its prudential supervision to focus on misconduct, including “improving entity governance” and building cultures within institutions “that will mitigate the risk of misconduct”. It also said it might need an increase to its budget, which is currently about $140 million a year. “Developing the capacity to supervise these issues, across a...

Lawyers warn against rushing new bank laws The Australian 12:00am February 11, 2019 Simon Benson   EXCLUSIVE  The Law Council of Australia has warned against Labor’s call to ­extend parliament in response to the banking royal commission, claiming rushed legislation would fail to deliver justice for thousands of victims who can’t afford to ­legally pursue banks that have ripped them off. Instead it has called for legal aid to be extended immediately to consumers who had meritorious claims against the banks but were unable to launch often costly legal action in a system that it claimed was in “crisis”. The Law Council’s official response to the royal commission warned against extending parliament to legislate recommended reforms, claiming rushed laws could have unintended consequences. It also called for a further $310 million for federal legal ­assistance funding with many consumers unable to access legal representation. Law Council president Arthur Moses SC told...

Big four back on investors’ radar The Australian 12:00am February 11, 2019 Scott Murdoch  The major Australian banks are back on the radar of international equity investors, with the royal commission’s final report removing sovereign risk concerns about the sector that emerged over the past year.  A roundtable of top bankers and advisers to the financial services sector, hosted by The Australian, found that the local banks had lost their share price premium compared to their international peers as the Hayne hearings played out over 2018. The upbeat financial market reaction to the big banks since the final report was delivered last week has been attributed to foreign investors buying the stocks again. The ASX banking index rose by 6 per cent last week, adding $22 billion to the market capitalisation of the local banks. Minter Ellison’s financial services practice leader Rahoul Chowdry said the reputation of the Australian banking industry...

ASIC took 3 years to charge rogue Deutsche Bank trader Australian Financial Review Feb 10, 2019 6.46pm Misa Han   A Deutsche Bank derivatives trader who made up figures to mask his trading losses has asked a court to spare him jail time because the corporate regulator took three-and-a-half years to charge him. Andy Donaldson, 51, appeared in the NSW District Court last week for his sentencing hearing. The former Sydney-based derivatives trader pleaded guilty to one charge of using his position dishonestly to gain an advantage for himself after admitting he entered fictitious transactions and fixed cashflows into the global investment bank's internal system to inflate his profit-and-loss figure. Donaldson faces up to five years in jail. Donaldson's barrister, Simon Buchen, SC, pleaded for no jail time for Donaldson and asked Judge Garry Neilson to impose a fully suspended sentence instead, arguing his client has already suffered because of the...

CBA commits to easing SME credit squeeze Australian Financial Review Feb 10, 2019 11.00pm James Frost   Commonwealth Bank will respond to concerns of a looming credit squeeze for small businesses owners with a commitment to keep lending and the removal of a series of unpopular fees and charges. The bank will announce the changes on Monday in response to community concerns and political pressure following the release of the Hayne royal commission's final report, which many feared would be a catalyst for a tightening of credit. CBA chief executive Matt Comyn said the bank was making changes every week and had removed about 10 fees and charges over the past 12 months. "Small businesses are the engine room of the Australian economy – when they thrive, we all thrive," Mr Comyn said. Commonwealth Bank lends $30 billion to small businesses a year. Small businesses account for 56 per cent of...

Mortgage stress at record high (again) Digital Finance Analytics8 February 2019 Martin North  Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) has released the January 2019 mortgage stress and default analysis update. The long grind in WA continues, with more households under financial pressure, but we are seeing further deterioration in other states too. The negative wealth effect is biting now. The number of households in severe stress continues to rise. The latest RBA data on household debt to income to September fell a little to 188.6[1], but still remains highly elevated. The housing debt ratio continues to climb to a new record of 139.6, according to the RBA.  This shows that household debt to income is still increasing.  This high debt level helps to explain the fact that mortgage stress continues to rise. Across Australia, more than 1,026,106 households are estimated to be now in mortgage stress (last month 1,023,906), another new record. This equates to more...

Reserve Bank of Australia stance swayed by 'housing uncertainty' Australian Financial Review Feb 8, 2019 6.28pm Sarah Turner, Jonathan Shapiro, John Kehoe   The Reserve Bank of Australia is becoming more anxious that an accelerating property market downturn could derail household spending and business investment just as risks from a global slowdown are on the rise. A further decline in house prices had become "a significant area of uncertainty" the Reserve Bank said, as it detailed on Friday why it had downgraded its economic growth forecasts and shifted to a neutral stance on raising or cutting interest rates. The RBA's revised forecasts still paint a picture of economic health, with growth expected to remain above trend, at or just below 3 per cent, and unemployment tipped to fall below 5 per cent. Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe still hopes a tightening labour market will spur wage growth and lift lacklustre inflation...

Banking royal commission: Vertical integration's days are numbered Australian Financial Review Feb 8, 2019 11.00pm Andrew Clark   Beyond dramatic headlines and NAB's executive meltdown, a measured judgment on the Hayne pain comes from Tony Hartnell, who has more than half a century of corporate regulation and advising figures like Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer behind him. More than 35 years later, the excesses and abuse resulting from a privileged banking oligopoly engaging in wealth management areas like superannuation and investment advice were "predictable" and former High Court judge Kenneth Hayne's exposure of dodgy practices like "fees for no service", or "money for nothing" trailing commissions for mortgage brokers, were the "the results", according to Hartnell. After a year of Hayne royal commission hearings, a withering critique of misdeeds in his final report, and Thursday's resignation of NAB chairman Ken Henry and chief executive Andrew Thorburn, Australia's four-pillar banking system is...

Banking royal commission: expect long-term political fallout from the Hayne report The Australian 12:00am February 9, 2019 Paul Kelly   The Hayne royal commission is a landmark in documenting the moral and financial betrayal of the public by financial and bank elites, raising the pivotal issue of whether genuine reform is possible and the price tag it may involve. This report will reverberate within politics for many years. The premature claim early last week was that the banks were escaping untouched. That’s wrong. This report shows the public has been robbed and exploited by “the big end of town” but there is one potent retaliatory power the people do possess — votes at the ballot box. No political party can afford to be seen as a proxy for the banks. No bank chief executive or chair was able to survive explicit criticism from commissioner Kenneth Hayne, hence the demise of NAB’s...

CBA, NAB, AMP face criminal charges The Australian 12:00am February 9, 2019 Ben Butler   EXCLUSIVE  Banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne has discussed criminal prosecutions of AMP, Commonwealth Bank and NAB for dishonesty offences with the corporate regulator, The Weekend Australian can reveal. In his final report, released on Monday, Mr Hayne said the Australian Securities & Investments Commission told him in August it was considering sending a brief of evidence to prosecutors about one institution and in November he referred two others to ASIC for potential prosecution. The institutions, which Mr Hayne did not name, are among at least five that Mr Hayne said he suspected may have committed the offence of engaging in dishonest conduct in relation to a financial product or financial service — a crime that attracts a fine of up to $9.45 million for corporations, or 10 years jail for an individual. These referrals are separate...

Macquarie veterans Bill Marynissen, Rob Johnston exit embattled wealth arm Australian Financial Review Feb 8, 2019 5.20pm Sarah Thompson, Misa Han   Macquarie Group veterans Bill Marynissen and Rob Johnston have become the latest, and arguably most high-profile, departures from the unravelling private wealth division. As first revealed by Street Talk, Macquarie announced on Friday that the head of Macquarie wealth management, Mr Marynissen, and head of wealth advisory, Mr Johnston, will retire from the business on March 31. Mr Marynissen, who spent 37 years at the bank and is the sixth-longest-serving employee at Macquarie, will be replaced by executive director Sean West. Mr Johnston has spent 22 years at Macquarie. The departures follow Macquarie's shift in gear last year to merge its private bank and private wealth businesses and focus exclusively on wealthier clients after the Hayne royal commission revealed industry-wide troubles in the retail advice sector. Under the new...

Prosecutor widens bank team The Australian 12:00am February 9, 2019 Ben Butler   EXCLUSIVE  The prosecutor who will be responsible for overseeing any criminal cases against banks and bankers coming out of the financial services royal commission says he is hiring extra staff and engaging external barristers to deal with a possible wave of referrals from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission. In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions deputy director Berdj Tchakerian also defended the agency’s record in going after foreign bribery by Australian companies, while acknowledging that white collar offences could take years to pilot through the legal process. Mr Tchakerian, who oversees the CDPP’s commercial, financial and corruption area, said the agency’s capacity to take on complex financial crime had been boosted by the Morrison government’s pledge to give it an additional $41.6 million over the next eight years. “With the provision of...

Words of caution from Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe Australian Financial Review Feb 7, 2019 11.00pm   [These are the remarks that got most of the media attention, but which are not included in the official RBA transcript I linked to in Wednesday’s intel] In questions and answers at the National Press Club this week, Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe spoke widely on the economy. This transcript was recorded and edited by The Australian Financial Review. On the royal commission and banks winning back trust RBA governor Philip Lowe: Why did this happen? I think there was clearly a big focus on sales, and I mean, at the end of the day, finance is about providing services, and any financial institutions focused on selling product ... why'd that occur? There were the internal renumeration incentives, and another thing that happened is financial institutions have been very profitable for decades, and when...

Banking royal commission: Hayne ‘insider trading’ probed The Australian 12:00am February 8, 2019 Michael Roddan   The corporate watchdog will ­assess claims that financial markets investors made a $22 million profit from trading on insider information contained in Kenneth Hayne’s royal commission final report, despite senior regulators doubting the veracity of the claim. Labor and the Greens have sought to pile political pressure on the government over insider trading claims, which opposition fin­ancial services spokeswoman Clare O’Neil said were written by a “respected economic commentator” on the online news site The New Daily, which is operated by industry super fund sector ­umbrella group Industry Super Holdings. The allegations centre on a substantial $500m purchase of shares in the major banks at 11am on Monday — ahead of the release of the royal commission report later that day — the buyers of which would have supposedly benefited to the tune of $22m...