29 August 2016
Sydney, 29 August 2016: After four months of silence on its terms of reference for a royal commission into banking, Labor has instead cut and pasted part of its May dissenting report from the PJC inquiry into impaired bank loans.
“In regurgitating the dissenting report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) on Corporations and Financial Services, Labor has suggested terms for a royal commission that are vague and open ended,” Australian Bankers’ Association Chief Executive Steven Münchenberg said today.
“The rest of the PJC didn’t agree with Labor’s terms and found no “evidence that demonstrates that there was widespread or systematic illegal behaviour by banks”.
“Having said that, the banking industry acknowledges there have been issues and we are working to fix those with our industry reform package we released in April,” Mr Münchenberg said
“An independent review is being conducted by a former Australian Public Service Commissioner into how bank staff are paid.
“Banks are also addressing community concerns about bad apples moving around the industry, the handling of customer complaints and the treatment of whistleblowers.”
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“This is about engaging with the entire banking ecosystem in order to ensure the accessibility of the sector’s services are best serving our diverse community now, and into the future.”
“What is underpinning this bank failure is a number of things, but not least of all, it’s a very niche bank with high exposure to one part of the economy. And that’s the part of the economy that’s been quite volatile and troubled”
The Treasurer has indicated that the federal government is closely monitoring the situation.