Past - Present And Future Of Australian Bank’s Regulations - Samples

Question: Discuss about the Past, Present And Future Of Australian Banks Regulations. Answer: Introduction Banking is a major sector in the economy of Australia and it contributes significant portion in the countrys economic condition. The financial sector of Australia is extremely liquid strong and sophisticated and therefore it is ranked at the fourth position in the entire world for the size of its pool of assets i.e. the investments funds. The banking sector of Australia constitutes mainly four prime banks which are as follows: Commonwealth Bank of Australia Westpac Banking Corporation National Australia Bank Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Due to the financial stability maintained by the banking companies in Australia and the activities offinance such as lending and borrowing functions, the financial sector of Australia has been rated as the best financial centres in the world. Apart from the activities of financial intermediation, the banks in Australia are also involve in other functions such as stock broking activities, financial market trading, insurance activities etc. The banking regulation includes different areas such as the legislative framework under which the Banks and other financial institutions are working, the regulatory bodies that are controlling the banking sector, the supervisory bodies of financial sector, licensing policies of banking industries etc. History of Australian Banks Regulations The first bank that was started in Australia in 1817 was the bank of New South Wales. The increase in the values of the properties in Australia caused the crisis in Australian bank. In the past, the regulation in the banking sector was not much stringent and there was no tight control of government over the banks of Australia due to which many commercial banks were failed to operate. The country had to face huge depression in 1930 due which there a series of bank failures. But after the depressions end, the banking regulation in Australia was made strict which made it nearly impossible to set up any branch in Australia for the foreign owned banks. Resultantly, the banks in Australia were quite less in comparison to the other countries. With the tight regulation, the Australian banks were bifurcated in two main categories i.e. the Savings Banks and the Trading Bank (Joshi, Cahill Sidhu, 2010). Since the regulatory framework for the banking industry was getting extremely strict, anoth er type ofnon-banking finance organisations in financial system were started getting developed like the credit union and the building societies. As these institutions were not recognised as banks they were free from the strict regulatory policies of banking system it privileged them give and take loans at higher rates of interest but at the same time they were allowed to provide only the limited services. However, the regulatory policies of banking sector in Australia were being removed at a slow pace in 1960 and as a result of which the classification of banks as trading and savings banks was nullified and every Australian bank was given the liberty to work as merchant banks to perform their functioning in the money market (Griffith-Jones Rodriguez, 2016). Moreover, the banks were given the independence to set the rates of interests on their own. As deregulation of banking industry was being carried out, the controls in the foreign exchange areas well also completely abandoned lea ding to the easy float of Australian currency i.e. the Australian dollar in 1983 (Singleton Verhoef, 2010). The changes in the regulatory policies allowed those non- bankingfinance institutions to turn into banks without any requirement of demutualisation. After this, in 1990 the Australian government started with a policy known as four pillars policy in context with the Australian Banking System, through which it restricted the mergers of the four major banks. This act of government was well established policy and not merely a formal regulation. Present Structure of Banks Regulations The regulatory framework for the banking system in Australia that is in existence recently is comprehensive and extensive primarily divide into two parts as shown and discussed below: However, the Australian banks are generally self-regulated. The Reserve Bank of Australia is also an important constitute of Australian banking regulatory framework. APRA is a statutory body formed for the regulation offinance industry in Australia. It was established in July, 1998. It was formed to regulate institutions like banks, insurance companies, building-societies, credit unions etc. so as to ensure they are financially stable to fulfil their obligations towards their depositors, policy holders. APRA is responsible for the supervision and providing the licenses to operate to various superannuation funds and the insurance companies (Dollery, Kortt Grant , 2013). The institutions of finance to whom APRA is regulating, are required to provide the report of their operations to APRA on a regular basis. APRA has announced certain guidelines on capital adequacy ratio to be maintained by banks, which are in line with the BASEL II guidelines. ASIC is an independent body with the key responsibility of regulation of certain financial companies and banks. Along with that it also has the responsibility of ensuring the protection of the consumers right, imparting financial literacy, overseeing the corporate governance practices, managing the financial services etc. As the regulators of Australian banks ASIC assesses the efficiency with which the banks are complying the regulatory requirements applicable on the Australian banks. Reserve Bank of Australia: The reserve bank is given the responsibility to formulate the banking policies and to issue of norms of operations of Australian banks. It is the central bank of Australia and the powers are assigned to it through the Reserve Bank Act. RBA also provides various services relating to banking to the government of Australia and to the other financial institutions and banks operating in Australia. The RBA seeks to encourage the maintenance of stability in the financial system of banking institutions and it also ensures the safety in the system of payments deployed by the banks. The currency notes of Australian country are also issue by the Reserve Bank of Australia. There is a drastic increase in the number of inquiries and investigations of the Australian banking institutions over last few years as the regulations towards the banking sector is getting stringent gradually. The bank regulators of the banks are requiring the banking institutions to be more compliant towards the rules framed therein. The violations of which includes heavy fines and penalty provisions. The regulations are quite tight in certain areas such as the money laundering activities, breach of banks code of conduct, activities of insider trading and other crimes in the financial areas are involving heavy litigations to prevent such an unethical conduct in banking sectors as public invests their huge funds in these financial institutions therefore a greater level of transparency is required to be maintained by the banks. Moreover, the current reforms that have introduced in the banking sector all over the globe have the objectives of enhancing the quality and quantity of capitals of banks and to instigate its consistency in the liquidity position of banks. These reforms are also targeted to achieve the greater level of transparency in banking sectors through the proper and necessary disclosures thereby strengthening the banks performance (Uddin Suzuki, 2011). In the past the original Basel Original accord 1988 was implemented and then in 2008 the new Basel Capital Framework was introduced. As with the new reform as Basel III, the compliance requirements have also increased (Eubanks, 2010). The committee which is handed over the function of implementation of Basel III is required to ensure the consistent delivery of outcomes in the banking sector. The proposal of APRA for the implementation of the Capital Reform Basel III was passed in the month of September 2011. And the banking institutions in Australia have to comply with the reform requirements at the soonest. At the same time APRA has refused to accept any alternative accounting treatment for particular items in the calculation of regulatory capital (Angelini, et al., 2015). The requirements of Basel III were applicable globally on the financial institutions, as a whole. However there is an element which is exclusively applicable to certain countries since Australia is one among those countries as it has very intense system of banking. The name of that element is D-SIB which the framework for dealing Domestic Systematically Important Banks. Future of Banking Regulations in Australia The banking in future will not be the same banking in current period as there are extensive forces which are influencing the Australian banking sector behaviour of customers, changes in democracy, technological advancements, governmental regulations and the depression in the global economy. To create the financial gains for the shareholders, the Australian banks needs to be remove the complexities of banking sectors and to be more compliant towards the regulations made by the government for the financial industries. According to Bill Clinton, the time of moderate or negligible regulations is now passed and the regulators of Australian banks have restarted to impose stringent regulatory requirements to the banking sectors. To improve the operations and the financial performance the banks in Australia will have to be re-focussed on their approach towards the compliances of regulatory requirements made by the Australian regulators of banking industry (Bologna, 2010). Not only the maintenance of transparency in banking functions is required out for better compliance of regulations but also the serious commitment of firm towards the goodwill maintenance in the market through excellent credit ratings. The eminent credit rating of a bank itself is the valuable asset for the banks as it will have positive influence on the regulators thereby helping the banks to avoid the unpleasant interventions of the regulators. Since the quality of any banks compliance practices towards the regulations is shared publically through the annual reports and the governmental mediums therefore the banks must not consider these regulations as the management of external risk on business rather these requirements should be assumed as the management of a most vital asset of the banks which is needed to be fostered. The privileges of having good or excellent credit ratings are enormous for any financial institution. The banks must accept that the major regulatory bodies such as APRA, ASIC and RBA are in the exclusive position to deal with the antitrust concerns that may prevent the banking company to incorporate the changes which are in public interest. The Australian regulations will still continue to remain focused on the corporate governance requirements for the banking and the other financial sectors. But the introduction of new capital requirements through the implementation of Basel III capital reforms will strengthen the banking industry and at the same time will provide the industry with the key challenges. In spite of the numerous global uncertainties such as delayed implementation of new capital reforms, APRA and ASIC are closely checking and monitoring the developments that are going on in the banking industry in todays era. The Australian regulators have to cope with the international standards otherwise it would lead to inefficiencies in the banking sector with increased level of risks. Even after the stricter regulations the banking sectors are encountering the issues of failures in the compliance requirements, violations of code of conduct with in the regulatory framework are being reported which requires holistic att ention of the regulatory bodies for Australian Banks (Jeucken, 2010). The banks top level management such as the Board of Directors etc. are required to define the corporate culture within their banking organisations so as to have a strong compliance framework. Therefore the Australian regulations needs to be more attentive towards these corporate values and must make the required rules in such areas. The regulations must also be extended towards the business strategies formulated and implemented by the Australian banks and the financial institutions and they should also provide for the interest of banks interests i.e. the banks must be regulated to not perform anything prejudicial in the public or the customers interests. The new standard on financial institutions are soon to be introduced in near future i.e. 2018 and they will put higher regulatory requirements to be complied with in accordance with the IFRS 9. Moreover, the new payment platform is also developed collectively by many financial institutions so that it will lead to detection of fraud done by the banking institutions, money laundering practices and will manage the liquidity and credit limits of the banks. From 2017 the Australian regulators together with the other international regulatory bodies will necessitate the collaboration with new participants to deal with requirements of daily margin maintenance. Recommendations for future regulation in Australian Banks Supervision over regulations The financial stability cannot be attained only through tight regulations as it also requires good amount of supervision at a higher level for the same. Regulations cannot be assumed as the alternative solution of supervision. As supervision has its own importance it must be considered and the drawback of extremely tight regulations on the banking industry must be analysed by the regulators. As APRAs has already been serving the Australian banking industry with the focus on supervision approach it must be retained further by the regulators with the implementation of new rules that are agreed upon (Brmer Gischer, 2012). Regulations and financial innovation The innovation that is being carried out in the banking or the financial system over several years has made it easy for the public to raise funds from banks at flexible loan terms and at lower interest rates. Innovation has helped the financial systems to maintain the risk involved in their banking business more efficiently and effectively. However, with such practices of innovation in their functions and services, it is difficult to frame the regulations for the new services as it is not very clear in the initial stage as to what the bank products actually are. So the Australian regulators must consider as to how to deal with the financial innovations coming up in the banking sector of Australia. However, the supervisor of banking industry must track the areas of financial innovations to supervise the banking companies to manage the risks in new areas of service. Conclusions It is well demonstrated from the above research that the Australian banks have performed much better than the banks in the other countries over a period of time. The main reason for the same is the APRAs strict regulations and supervision for the banking sector in Australia and also because of the sound economic position of Australian markets. The performance also indicates Australian banks higher standards of operations than that of other countries. International regulatory bodies along with the major regulators of Australian financial markets viz. APRA, ASIC and RBA have provided consistent and comprehensive regulatory frameworks to the financial institutions to adhere on and the Australian banks have responded to the regulatory requirements in an adequate manner. The regulations imposed by the governmental authorities have both positive as well as the negative impacts as these are good enough for the safety and transparency point of view, at the same time the banks tends to lose t heir key focus on the operations when they are much concerned about the compliance requirements. References: Angelini, P., Clerc, L., Crdia, V., Gambacorta, L., Gerali, A., Locarno, A., Motto, R., Roeger, W., Van den Heuvel, S. and Vl?ek, J., 2015. 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