Find below an interview with ASIC chief Greg Medcraft from the Centre for International Financial and Regulation. The context is Medcraft’s leadership of the the International Organisation of Securities Commissions as a part of the G20.
The beauty of this interview is that exposes exactly how scandals like those currently afflicting the CBA take root. Medcraft has no time for rules or regulations and is focused entirely on the notion that the “culture” of an organistion is the only point of contact that the regulator should approach, using such frightening tools as surveys. This is “light touch” regulation par excellence and I just wonder how Mr Medcraft sees cultural change transpiring without changing any rules.
Mr Medcraft came to this job with a questionable record in securitisation here and abroad. His knowledge is no doubt peerless. But as Chairman of the American Securitisation Forum in 2005, he was also at the coal face of the most destructive collapse in lending standards in history, yet here he is still endorsing “light touch”.
Mr Medcraft might want to take a look at the survey of his own operation’s culture currently on display in the senate document calling for a Royal Commission into ASIC failures.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr Medcraft is about to royally set back international efforts to bring global wildcat finance into an alignment with a social contract that makes markets work for the good of all not just the few.
