WHAT WILL IT TAKE BEFORE THE PRIME MINISTER CALLS A ROYAL
COMMISSION?
What will it take to for the Prime Minister to accept there needs to be a Royal Commission into Australia's banking system?
Below is just a sample of the cases over the last 12 months where poor practice, unprofessional conduct, illegal activity, overcharging and failures in consumer protections has been identified within Australia's big banks.
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- 14 Jan 2016: ASIC banned former ANZ bank adviser for ten years for misleading and deceptive conduct
- 20 January 2016: Westpac paid $1 million after ASIC raised concerns about bad credit limit practices
- 4 February 2016: ASIC banned former NAB bank adviser for seven years for amending change of adviser forms without the knowledge of the client
- 7 March 2016: ANZ paid $212,500 penalty for breaching responsible lending laws when offering overdrafts
- 7 March 2016: Allegations surfaced of a case where CommInsure abruptly stopped income protection payments to a customer and only began paying them again when media inquired.
- 5 April 2016: Westpac subsidiary paid penalties of $493,000 after breaching consumer protections
- 8 June 2016: ASIC banned former ANZ financial adviser for being under qualified to deliver financial services
- 2 September 2016: CommSec paid $700,000 in infringement notice penalties and refunds $1.1 million in brokerage
- 5 September 2016: ANZ to refund nearly $29 million to more than 390,000 accounts as a result of unclear fee disclosures
- 8 September 2016: Westpac refunded $20 million in credit card foreign transaction fees, as ASIC warns consumers on foreign transaction fees for Australian dollar transactions
- 27 October 2016: ASIC report Financial Advice: Fees for no service revealed 200,000 people were charged for financial advice they never received with ASIC estimating that $178 million could be paid in compensation
- 28 November 2016: ASIC banned former Westpac financial planner for eight years with a customer remediation process recovering $1.12 million across 29 former clients.
- 13 September 2016: Westpac refunded $9.2 million after failing to waive bank account fees for eligible customers
- 14 December 2016: The Federal Court ordered fines of $9 million for ANZ Bank and $6 million for Macquarie Group over "very serious" attempts by traders to rig a key benchmark rate in Malaysia's foreign exchange markets.
- 21 December 2016: CBA and NAB made a collective $5 million in payments for their conduct in wholesale spot foreign exchange businesses
- 6 February 2017: National Australia Bank's wealth arm was forced to pay $36.5 million in compensation to its customers, after wrongly charging fees to superannuation fund members and wrongly denying insurance claims
- 3 February 2017: Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Kate Carnell finds that the big banks have been unfair in their dealings with small businesses on loans.
How many more Australians have to become victims of banking misconduct before this Prime Minister will act?
In the interests of all Australians Malcolm Turnbull cannot keep ignoring his responsibility as Prime Minister - it’s time for him to stop protecting his banking friends and establish a Royal Commission now.