The Australian Banking Association this week responded to recommendations from the Final Report of the Independent Review of the Banking Code Compliance Committee (BCCC) of Practice 2021, conducted by Mr Phil Khoury of cameron. ralph. khoury.
ABA Chief Executive Officer, Anna Bligh said the ABA supports the majority of recommendations from the BCCC review, in particular the transition to greater transparency on bank compliance with the Code through a naming regime.
"We think this is beneficial for lifting industry standards even higher. While there is further work to do to address consistency in reporting and benchmarking to get ready for such a change, the ABA looks forward to working with the BCCC and other industry stakeholders on this objective," Ms Bligh said.
Together with this recommendation, the ABA have accepted eight out of the nine recommendations within its remit including:
- Recognising and further promoting the dual role of the BCCC in both monitoring compliance and promoting industry best practice;
- Enhanced representation of small business and faming sectors in the BCCC's work;
- Enhanced powers to report serious or system issues to ASIC; and
- Enhanced powers to consider Code breach matters beyond 2 years or, where another forum has made no finding in relation to a Code breach.
Regarding the one recommendation not supported (recommendation 17 that banks named by the BCCC for serious breaches also publish this fact on their own website) Ms Bligh said "the BCCC has existing powers to publicly name banks that have breached the Code without the need for Banks to repeat this information on their own websites."
Ms Bligh said compliance monitoring work undertaken by the BCCC is crucial to build public trust and confidence and keep banks accountable.
"The work the BCCC does on identifying areas for improvement is very valuable to banks in identifying areas for further work and ultimately delivering better customer outcomes," Ms Bligh said.
In responding to the Review, the ABA has sought the views of member banks and considered recent reports relating to BCCC priorities.
