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Big 4 to face parliamentary scrutiny next month
Dates have been set for the public hearings being conducted by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, as part of its ongoing scrutiny of Australia’s four major banks.
Emma Musgrave
The committee has posted the dates as the 8 March and the 27 March, which will be held in the Main Committee Room at Parliament House, Canberra.
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CBA will be first cab off the rank on 8 March from 9.15am to 12.15pm, followed by Westpac from 1.15pm to 4.15pm. The second day of public hearings, on 27 March, will examine ANZ first from 9:15am to 12:15pm and close with NAB from 1.15pm to 4.15pm.
Committee chair Tim Wilson MP said the hearings “provide an important mechanism to hold the four major banks to account before the Parliament”.
“These hearings will, in particular, provide an opportunity to scrutinise the banks on the findings of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry,” Mr Wilson said.
The latest scrutiny follows four previous rounds of hearings the committee has completed as part of its ongoing review. Since it began the committee has made a suite of recommendations for banking reform, which have been broadly adopted by the government.
Some of those include: putting in place a one stop shop for consumer complaints, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority; a regulated Banking Executive Accountability Regime; and new powers and resources for the ACCC to investigate competition issues in the setting of interest rates.
The final report from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry was released on Monday, 4 February with Commissioner Kenneth Hayne handing down 76 recommendations.
In response to the final report, Lawyers Weekly received comments from several law firms about the impact such recommendations will have if adopted.
INSIGHT: Alex Whitlock, director of Momentum Media, shares his views on what the royal commission means for Australian borrowers and competition.
