'Unfairly hiding poor performance': The banking industry overseer wants more powers, but will it get them?

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Two years after it was formed, the committee enforcing breaches of the Banking Code of Practice has used its most serious sanction just twice. That power is writing the name of a bank on a report.

The committee does not have the power to report "systemic or serious non-compliance" to the regulator unless the problem is ongoing. So if a problem has stopped, regulator ASIC can not be told about it ever happening.

The committee has called for the ability to force banks to publish what they have done to fix problems, "on its website and apps as acknowledgement of the breach and the resulting actions". "[This] may adversely impact its ability to achieve the desired outcome of driving improved code compliance." This can be seen in some of the investigations made by the committee because of a tide of complaints.It used 378 mystery shoppers to test how difficult it was to cancel the payments, finding that 71 per cent of the interactions were compliant with the code — a substantial leap from 44 per cent when the survey was last done in 2018."The Code Compliance Committee does play a really important role in that broader consumer protection context.

Of the 19 recommendations in the review the committee called into itself, only 10 were within its jurisdiction to change. Despite the parallel reviews being published in November and December 2021, consumers will be waiting to see change.Anna Bligh says the code and the committee that oversee it play an important role.

"When it comes to enforcement of poor behaviour, that is the job of government regulators," she added, pointing aggrieved customers towards the bank's internal complaints systems and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. This marks a shift for the association, which has long noted that the Banking Code of Practice is the only industry code that has beenThe Association later clarified the comment, noting that the code hasn't been passed as legislation, like a law such as the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, so banks are not subject to penalties or fines for any breaches.

 

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Oh please stop it Anna Bligh. You make me laugh. Nothing has changed. Bank victims need action. Justice Lee is a hero. He gave AMP 4 mths in March 2020 to compensate customers. They had him extend to Dec 2021. He refused a further extension last Friday.

More power to do what exactly? Maybe addressing the point that Lead AFCA Ombudsman Natalie Cameron was making when she told me last week that AFCA is not the Police, they can't make banks talk to customers about their complaints.

No because bank lobbyists.

ABC articles this morning: Bank bashing Profit Bashing Asking to tax business more Some racism against a HK business

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