I’ve not much to add to this beyond an ennui of exhausted disgust. Here’s evil Anna Bligh’s latest take on the restoration of criminal banking proposed in Frydenprime:
The Australian Banking Association has welcomed proposed changes to the nation’s consumer credit laws.
“It is important to ensure that these changes strike the right balance between maintaining strong consumer protections while providing credit into the economy at a critical time”, said Australian Banking Association Chief Executive Officer, Anna Bligh.
“Banks look forward to working with the Government to ensure the legislation works for both customers and the broader economy”.
The Banking Royal Commission identified the need to simplify the regulatory landscape. This proposed reform removes duplication and overlap between regulators while continuing to ensure strong protections for consumers.
“Australian banks understand their role in supporting customers and rebuilding the economy. Ensuring the flow of credit to families and businesses, with the right customer protections, is paramount”, Ms Bligh said.
Australian banks remain committed to strong protections for consumers. Under the Government’s proposal banks will continue to be subject to strong regulation, including the conduct requirements of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, APRA lending standards and the Banking Code of Practice, together with the important role of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
With the right balance, these changes will simplify lending rules while maintaining strong protections for borrowers and improving protections for those vulnerable consumers using debt management firms, small amount credit providers and consumer leases.
The ABA welcomes the further protections for customers accessing small amount credit contracts and consumer leases. Australians facing financial difficulty will welcome the strong new protections against the unscrupulous practices of some debt management firms. In some cases, these firms prey on people at their most difficult time and their actions can leave them worse off.
Australian banks will work with the Government and regulators in the months ahead on the detail of the proposed changes.
This is fraud hiding in plain sight. Here’s Hayne RC recommendation number one:
Exactly what Frydenprime is seeking to alter. Even as banking criminality is already rebounding, via Banking Day:
Privacy and confidentiality are the Code of Banking Practice obligations that banks breach most commonly, followed by ensuring that staff are properly trained and competent, and responsible lending.
The Banking Code Compliance Committee’s latest report on banking code compliance, which covers the six months to the end of last year, details 20,863 code breaches affecting 4.4 million customers. The breaches had a financial impact of A$100 million.
Other common breaches involved debt recovery practices, dealing with customers in financial difficulty and complaints handling.
Under the banking code obligations, banks must report to the BCCC every six months, providing a summary of their compliance with the code.
For the 2018/19 financial year banks reported 15,597 breaches. The BCCC said the big jump to 20,863 breaches in the six months to December may mean that some banks have stopped under-reporting or that there are growing areas of concern.
“The committee has long held the view that some banks continuously under-report on their compliance with the code. We are still unable to conclude definitively whether the increase in breaches reported each year represents a deterioration in bank conduct or is a demonstration that banks are better able to identify and fix problems.”
The BCCC also said it has concerns about the quality of the data banks provide, and would like to see “substantial” improvement.
More than 50 per cent of all reported breaches fell under Part 2 of the code, which covers obligations to protect privacy and confidentiality, train staff to understand the code and engage customers in a fair, reasonable and ethical manner.
Typical breaches include: processes not followed correctly; fees charged incorrectly; information provided to an incorrect party; interest or discount errors and identification errors.
Breaches of Chapter 17 of the code, which covers responsible lending, were also common.
The BCCC said: “Most of the Chapter 17 breaches were the result of an irresponsible or incorrect lending decision. For some breaches, banks reported that they did not make sufficient inquiries about a customer’s needs or financial situation, or the bank made an incorrect assessment of a customer’s situation.”
A perennial issue showed up in breaches: “not taking appropriate care with customers experiencing vulnerable circumstances or not considering a customer’s vulnerability when providing a service.”
That would be Evil Anna’s code of conduct. Three years ago, when Evil Anna took the gig as head banking lobbyist, she said:
“Personally, I’ve always believed you get more done inside the tent and that’s why I’m excited about the opportunity to lead and shape a very compelling package of change and reforms”.
What Evil Anna didn’t say, but we all knew, is that that the “reforms” were all about being paid $600k to corrupt national interest policy on behalf of a tiny, publically-backed, banking elite, even as she drew on a post-politics public pension.
Having done her best to prevent, misdirect and stymie the Hayne RC, Evil Anna is back to push the Frydenprime “reforms” which will be particularly harmful to the core Labor constituencies of youth and workers.
Live as long as you can, Evil Anna, because eternal agony in the seventh level of banker hell awaits thee.
