AFP, Sydney :
A major shake-up of Australia’s massively profitable banking sector is on the cards as a landmark inquiry into abuses in the financial services industry releases its final report Monday.
Sweeping legislative and regulatory changes, a crackdown on the bulging pay packets of bankers and even criminal charges against senior executives could be among the recommendations issued by the royal commission.
Major lenders including the country’s “big four” banks – among the developed world’s most wealthy – have been under scrutiny in recent years, amid allegations of dodgy financial advice, life insurance and mortgage fraud. Some unscrupulous brokers were found charging customers long after they were dead.
The wide-ranging inquiry was established in late 2017 to quell public anger over their misbehaviour, and a preliminary report released in September slammed the banks’ culture of greed.
“I think there will be some substantive changes… around strengthening the regulators and increasing the punishments (for misbehaviour),” RMIT University’s Warren Staples told AFP.
A major shake-up of Australia’s massively profitable banking sector is on the cards as a landmark inquiry into abuses in the financial services industry releases its final report Monday.
Sweeping legislative and regulatory changes, a crackdown on the bulging pay packets of bankers and even criminal charges against senior executives could be among the recommendations issued by the royal commission.
Major lenders including the country’s “big four” banks – among the developed world’s most wealthy – have been under scrutiny in recent years, amid allegations of dodgy financial advice, life insurance and mortgage fraud. Some unscrupulous brokers were found charging customers long after they were dead.
The wide-ranging inquiry was established in late 2017 to quell public anger over their misbehaviour, and a preliminary report released in September slammed the banks’ culture of greed.
“I think there will be some substantive changes… around strengthening the regulators and increasing the punishments (for misbehaviour),” RMIT University’s Warren Staples told AFP.
