Australian Watchdog Gets New Teeth

Tom Burroughes

9 August 2018

Australia's principal financial regulator is going to start sending its officials inside firms to root out wrongdoers and deter abuses.

The new powers for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which kicked in at the start of this week, come as the country’s Royal Commission inquiry, set up last year to probe misconduct at banks and other organisations, continues to bring malpractices to light.

“We will be going on-site,” ASIC Chairman James Shipton was quoted by the Epoch Times as saying. He continued: “We will have supervisory officers embedded for significant periods of time inside these large financial institutions because I know it makes a difference to the way that they behave to the way decisions are made.”

The regulator will receive an additional A$70 million in federal government funding over two years to put together a team of about 20 staff based in bank offices, as well as into AMP, the investment firm beset by a number of scandals, the publication said.

This publication has chronicled a series of problems at banks such as Commonwealth Bank of Australia and others over issues as varied as mis-selling of advice and money laundering violations. ASIC has also for some time carried out a programme to kick wrongdoers from the wealth management sector .

Australia’s financial services sector has attracted unflattering headlines in recent months, with executives from some firms resigning. The government set up a Royal Commission into the sector late last year.