The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published remarks delivered by Member Therese McCarthy Hockey to the Customer Owned Banking Association CEO and Director Forum in Sydney.

In her opening remarks ahead of taking questions, Ms McCarthy Hockey outlined the steps APRA is taking to minimise regulatory burden and enhance the proportionality of its prudential framework while also ensuring banks are prepared to respond to risks.

Her comments included:

• “At a time when the global financial system is evolving rapidly, the array of risks banks need to identify and manage is growing in both scope and severity. This time last year, we saw a banking crisis in the United States emerge and spread internationally with unprecedented speed, facilitated by social media and online banking.”
• “Enhancing the proportionality of the framework isn’t the only way we’ve sought to reduce the regulatory burden. As part of our corporate planning process in 2021, we also set about looking at our prudential rule book and considering whether it remained fit for purpose.”
• “We will continue to evolve our approach and prudential framework in response to new risks and changes in the operating environment. Your challenge as mutual banks is much the same: to understand the risks to your businesses from factors such as new rivals, technological innovation and evolving consumer preferences – and make sure you are equipped to respond.”

• Complying with directors’ duties may be difficult, but ASIC expects you to do it, it can be done, and there are benefits.
• Developments in AI, cyber threats, sustainable finance and ESG mean greater complexity in the business environment.
• Directors need to ask themselves the right questions: Are you acting honestly? Are you putting the company first? Do you have a continuous curiosity to understand the business and associated risks? And are you challenging management and getting professional advice?

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) have published further information to help banks, insurers and superannuation trustees prepare for the commencement of the Financial Accountability Regime (FAR).

The FAR, which takes effect for banks from 15 March 2024 and one year later for the insurance and superannuation industries, imposes a strengthened responsibility and accountability framework to improve the risk governance cultures of APRA-regulated entities, their directors and most senior executives.

The current Federal Government will introduce a financial sector regulatory initiatives grid to make sure the standard business of regulation is carried out in a more coordinated way.

We want to make it simpler and easier to do business in Australia and that’s what this will help achieve in the financial services sector.

The grid will be a rolling, 24‑month forward program of regulatory initiatives that will materially affect the financial sector, including banking, credit, insurance, superannuation, investment, payments, and capital market entities, updated twice a year.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published Chair John Lonsdale’s Opening Statement to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee.

“APRA recently released their latest Policy and Supervision Priorities, which provides a six-month view on APRA’s key focus areas for banking, insurance and superannuation.

It emphasises:

• operational and cyber resilience, reflecting the growing reliance on digital technologies by entities and the community;
• embedding lessons learned from last year’s global banking turmoil through targeted changes to the prudential framework for authorised deposit-taking institutions;
• lifting superannuation trustees’ practices on retirement incomes, implementing recommendations from the Financial Regulator Assessment Authority (FRAA) review, enhancing transparency and aligning APRA’s heatmaps with the performance test; and
• across insurance, continuing to balance financial sustainability with the need to enhance affordability and availability.”

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) have jointly released a letter to all authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) and their authorised non-operating holding companies (NOHCs) on the Financial Accountability Regime (FAR).

ASIC has accepted a court enforceable undertaking from buy now, pay later provider Elevare Pay Easy Pty Ltd, trading as Elepay.

Elepay’s products are financial products under the Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO) of the Corporations Act which requires Elepay to make a Target Market Determination (TMD) before offering them to consumers.

TMDs ensure that products are only sold to consumers in the target market for that product and that the product is appropriate to their needs and objectives.

Although buy now, pay later products are not considered credit products, they must comply with the DDO.

The DDO commenced on 5 October 2021. They require issuers and distributors to take a consumer-centric approach by placing consumer outcomes front and centre at the product design, product distribution, and monitoring and review stages of the product life cycle.

The Corporations Act extends the definition of ‘financial product’ for the purpose of the DDO to include a ‘financial product’ within the meaning of the ASIC Act, which includes a ‘credit facility’.

Keynote address by ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court at the Connexus Super Chair Forum, 1 February 2024.

Key Points

• ASIC’s enforcement priorities in the superannuation sector in the coming year run along three key themes: member services failures; misleading conduct, including greenwashing; and failures to protect superannuation balances.
• These reflect areas of genuine harm ASIC is seeing through intelligence and surveillance and should serve as fair warning to the sector as to where it needs to lift performance.
• Superannuation fund board chairs are in a powerful position to impact outcomes for members and ASIC is calling on them to be proactive in placing members at the heart of day-to-day operations or face possible regulatory attention.

ASIC Chair Joe Longo spoke at the UTS Human Technology Institute Shaping Our Future Symposium on the current and future state of AI regulation and governance:

We’re not there yet: Current regulation around AI may not be sufficient.

Key Points

• ASIC Chair Joe Longo spoke at the UTS Human Technology Institute Shaping Our Future Symposium on the current and future state of AI regulation and governance.
• All participants in the financial system have a duty to balance innovation with the responsible, safe, and ethical use of emerging technologies – and existing obligations around good governance and the provision of financial services don’t change with new technology.
• ASIC will continue to act, within our remit, to deter bad behaviour whenever appropriate and however caused. Our focus is – and will always be – the safety and integrity of the financial system and positive outcomes for consumers and investors.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published its supervision and policy priorities for the first six months of 2024.

In a letter released this morning, APRA outlined its regulatory agenda across banking, superannuation and insurance, we well as major cross-industry issues including cyber security, operational resilience, climate risk and governance.

The letter acts as an interim update ahead of APRA moving to publishing its policy and supervision priorities in its annual Corporate Plan, which is due by the end of August.

ASIC has opened its consultation on the Australian Banking Association’s proposed changes to its Banking Code of Practice. The Code contains a set of contractually enforceable standards that customers and small business can expect subscribing banks to uphold. The ABA plans to apply for ASIC approval of the revised Code.

ASIC will look to take strong, targeted enforcement action in the coming months and into 2024, as part of its focus on member outcomes in the superannuation sector.

The enforcement focus comes after ASIC’s enforcement and regulatory update highlighted ASIC’s work to protect consumers, including calling on banks to ensure better consumer outcomes and civil penalty action against Westpac Banking Corporation after alleged failures to address financial hardship notices.

ASIC calls on organisations to prioritise their cyber security after its report into the cyber capability of corporate Australia identified significant gaps.

The report summarises the results of ASIC’s recent cyber pulse survey. The results of the voluntary self-assessment survey have exposed deficiencies in cyber security risk management of critical cyber capabilities, indicating that organisations are reactive rather than proactive when it comes to managing their cyber security.

ASIC has taken action against H.E.S.T. Australia Limited (HESTA), the trustee of HESTA superannuation fund, for alleged false or misleading statements made in their marketing material.
HESTA paid $48,600 to comply with three infringement notices issued by ASIC regarding alleged false or misleading statements about its ‘Balanced Growth’ superannuation investment option.

ASIC has overseen more than $17.4 million in combined compensation payments to over 2,000 retail clients affected by breaches of financial services laws by eight retail OTC derivative issuers.

Coinciding with AGM season, in recent weeks financial services regulators have released their annual reports. We’ve collated them all, to make them easier for you to look up, read, and consider any points of interest for your organisation.

With spring now in full swing, here is our latest round-up of the plays regulators have been following.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published its Annual Report for the 2022-23 financial year.

The Annual Report is available on the APRA website at: APRA Annual Reports

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published a speech delivered by Member Suzanne Smith to the Insurance Council of Australia’s Annual Conference in Sydney.

In “Worth the risk: finding a better balance in general insurance”, Ms Smith discussed the need to keep the insurance sector strong while also finding a way to ensure cover remains accessible and affordable for the community.

Strong, sustainable insurance businesses are central to a thriving economy. Essential to this is the availability of affordable, appropriate cover to every household and business that needs protection along with confidence to take financial risks. Getting everyone on the same page and finding solutions to the myriad of issues I have outlined won’t be easy. I’m sure there will be mis-steps and we may not always agree. But if we are truly going to insure the future together, working together to leverage our strengths and harness the collective wisdom is definitely worth the risk.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published a speech delivered by Chair John Lonsdale to the Citi Australia and New Zealand Investment Conference in Sydney.

In “Aftershock: lessons from a real-life banking stress test”, Mr Lonsdale outlined the steps APRA was taking to shore up financial system stability in response to the lessons learned from the global banking turmoil of earlier this year.