Via the AFR:
The chairman of the government’s financial system inquiry David Murray is warning the banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne to avoid loading new laws onto lenders and advisers as this may push customers into unregulated shadow banks, make it tougher for older Australians to get financial advice, and curtail competition.
In a speech on Wednesday, Mr Murray will urge the royal commission to not adopt a heavy-handed approach in response to its selective case studies of misconduct in the financial services sector, given new laws called for by his root-and-branch review of the financial system in 2014 still need time to be bedded down.
The “backdrop of high house prices and household indebtedness” mean any changes to banks’ responsible lending obligations or mortgage broking require “very careful consideration”, Mr Murray will say.
Murray did a good job on the inquiry but he is no longer its “chairman”. He’s now the chairman of AMP, a disgraced player in the royal commission, as well as conflicted rentier and should bow out of the debate.
The royal commission should do whatever it sees fit.
