ASIC review into breach reporting obligations

Today’s release of the ASIC report into compliance with breach reporting obligations shows that banks need to identify, report and fix issues more quickly to regain customer trust and ensure they comply with the law.

CEO of the Australian Banking Association Anna Bligh said that this report was a further wake up call to the banks to lift their game in quickly 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,” Ms Bligh said.

“Customers expect these problems to be identified and fixed as soon as possible. Clearly this report shows there’s a lot of work to be done.

“The industry has fully cooperated 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 timeframe.

“In August the government announced that ASIC would assign dedicated staff for onsite monitoring in the country’s four major banks and AMP to beef up supervision of governance and compliance with the law.

“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.

ENDS
Contact: Rory Grant 0475 741 007