Commonwealth Bank hit with $1b capital charge after scathing APRA report
"AMP CEO RESIGNS OVER SCANDALS"
May 1 2018 at 8:15 AM Updated May 1 2018 at 11:03 AM
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by James Eyers Jonathan Shapiro
The prudential regulator has slammed Commonwealth Bank's board, senior management and culture in a scathing 110 page report that lambasts the bank for its widespread complacency, overconfidence, excessive complexity and insularity.
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The report has landed at a politically sensitive time for the banking sector, which has had its reputation shredded in recent weeks by the banking royal commission.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) report chastised CBA for a "slow, legalistic and reactive, at times dismissive, culture" and said "an overly collegial and collaborative working environment [had] lessened the opportunity for constructive criticism, timely decision-making and a focus on outcomes".
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CBA told the ASX the $1 billion capital penalty would increase risk weighted assets by $12.5 billion and reducing common equity tier 1 capital (CET1) ratio by 29 basis points from 10.4 per cent to 10.1 per cent. The penalty is not severe in a historical context. In 2004, APRA forced National Australia Bank to add 100 basis points to its Tier I capital ratio after the foreign exchange fraud debacle - three times larger than the impact to CBA's capital position.
These posts may be of interest to some, as many of the problems outlined in the articles would be consistent with mismanagement of financial institutions in the U.S.A. As you all well know.
Not holding any breath waiting for one of the top people in any of Australian financial outfits going to jail for something like, dunno, like maybe criminal neglect, or anything.
Twenty-three years on the judicial bench has etched onto Kenneth Hayne's face the sober values that judges' careers are built on — inscrutable, impartial, impassive.
[Suggest the look could be either be seen as the Mueller look, or the Haynes look]
Don't be fooled by it.
While careful, considered and in many ways cautious, Justice Kenneth Hayne's 950-plus pages of findings are a manifesto for political action, composed safely in the knowledge that, unlike most previous reviews of the banking, insurance and super industries, his recommendations will be ignored at some peril.
Key recommendations:
* Commissions should be largely eliminated from the financial sector, including mortgage broking, financial planning and insurance sales
* Mortgage brokers should meet similar requirements to financial planners to put their clients' best interests first
* Car dealers and others selling financial products at the point of sale of goods should be subject to responsible lending obligations
* Financial planners should seek their clients' agreement every year if they are charging ongoing fees for advice
* Farmers should have access to a national farm-debt-mediation scheme and the appointment of receivers should be a last resort
* A last-resort compensation scheme, funded by industry, will ensure consumers who suffer bank wrongdoing receive compensation
* Several institutions may face criminal charges, while many others have been referred to ASIC for further investigation
Timing is everything to drive complex, difficult and overdue change in sectors with deep pockets and powerful interests — just ask Wayne Swan about his venture into mining super profits taxes.
But released in the shadows of a general election expected no later than May, Justice Hayne can bank on most of his suggested changes, and possible prosecutions, being driven through to completion regardless of who forms the next government.
In his own words, Commissioner Hayne exhorts governments, regulators and the regulated to correct the lax compliance and greed-inducing incentives that he regards as a pressing national project.
- "The very large reputational consequences that are now seen in the Australian financial services industry, especially in the banking industry, stand as the clearest demonstration of the pressing urgency for dealing with these issues," he wrote. -
The imperative was not lost on either current or aspiring Treasurers — Josh Frydenberg declaring that a Morrison Government would "take action on all 76 recommendations" and Chris Bowen matching with "in principle" support for all of them.
With those positions declared, the only question remaining is what political potency the Hayne recommendations will have in the dozen or so weeks remaining between now and election day.
'We started it' versus 'we finished it'
If both major parties are as committed to delivering on the Hayne manifesto as they say they are, and if voters believe it, then any votes changing hands on polling day would swing only on the strength of the prosecution of political arguments.
Labor's charge is that the Coalition dragged its heels for more than a year before the Turnbull government's eventual and reluctant capitulation in the face of a backbench revolt that threatened to deliver an unwieldy inquisition, sprawling, longer and costlier than Justice Haynes's.
It's hardly a new argument — really just the extension of the same one the ALP has run since it first locked onto the idea of a royal commission almost 3 years ago.
The Morrison Government, on the other hand, seeks credit for putting the Hayne train into motion and seeing its journey through to completion, regardless of its inertia in the first place.
Beyond that, Mr Frydenberg's early response also hints at a decided strategy to strike an understanding and empathetic tone to the many victims of the banks' sharp practices — especially when so many Coalition backbenchers believe an ample number of them live in their electorates.
Of course, if any votes are to be swayed on the strength of these political arguments, electors will be making an investment in trust that politics will deliver these reforms over time.
It's legislative mathematics that defies calculation: 76 recommendations, many of them involving complex "simplification" of existing laws, divided by the five remaining sitting days for House and Senate before the next election's called.
Put simply, even with a degree of bipartisanship, there is next to no time for the changes to pass through the current 45th Parliament.
The exquisite timeliness of Kenneth Hayne's final report is that he's pitched it into an environment where both sides will be asked to make tangible, binding commitments to see his project through to completion.
That still demands a small amount of trust from electors that commitments made will be delivered in office.
The bet is probably a safe one — but worth remembering that trust is a currency as short in supply in politics as it is in the branches and shopfronts of our multi-billion-dollar banks and insurance houses these days
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