ASIC’s report into compliance with breach reporting obligations showed that banks were taking years to identify a breach and in many cases were late to tell ASIC of the breach.
The ABA’s chief executive Anna Bligh said the report was a wake-up call to the banks to lift their game in fixing issues in their business.
“This investigation shows that banks efforts to identify issues, report them to ASIC and compensate customers is not good enough,” Ms Bligh said.
Ms Bligh said customers expected the problems to be identified and solved but the report showed that it was not happening.
“The industry has fully cooperated with the ASIC Enforcement Review and has supported changes including increasing penalties and introducing a civil penalty in addition to the criminal offence for failing to report within the required timeframe,” she said.
The government also announced dedicated staff for onsite monitoring in the four main banks and AMP to beef up supervision. The industry welcomes the oversight, said Ms Bligh.
“This new initiative, among others, was welcomed by the industry who are working proactively and in good faith with ASIC to improve monitoring and increase transparency within the sector,” she said.
