The recommendations include those to simplify law and improve governance
- Recommends new oversight authority to assess effectiveness of each regulator
- Seeks to increase consumer protection, strengthen regulators, improve conduct
- Finds 24 instances of bad corporate behaviour
- Says that government has agreed to take action on all 76 recommendations
The full report can be found here. Of note is the call in recommending a new watchdog for regulators in what is a significant change to the financial landscape. They also recommend that ASIC and APRA should each be subject to capability reviews at least every four years.
Overall, it signals tougher regulation on banks in general but the fact that the government chose to act so quickly by agreeing to act on said recommendations is another sign that they're trying to appease the general public ahead of expected elections around May this year.
The positive news for banks is that they don't see it necessary to mandate structural separation/breaking up of financial advice and wealth management.
