Economics Committee to conduct full day of financial regulator hearings

THE House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics will tomorrow hold its first public hearings into three of the four key financial regulators, the ACCC, ASIC and APRA. These follow the hearing into the Reserve Bank of Australia three weeks ago.

Giving evidence will be Gina Cass-Gottlieb, chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Wayne Byres, chair of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), and Joe Longo, chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Labor’s Daniel Mulino MP, the committee’s chair, said that scrutiny of Australia’s financial system regulators is crucial to ensuring Australia’s economic resilience.

“While the Optus data breach has caused immense concern to the millions of Australians affected, it should also be a wake-up call to the corporate sector generally that robust systems are critical, regardless of the industry," Dr Mulino said.

“And as a committee we need to make sure that the key regulators of the corporate sector are doing what is required, and expected of them, to protect all Australians. The data breach has shown how vulnerable Australians can be.”

Dr Mulino added that the regulators needed to remain on the front foot in light of the challenges facing the economy including cost pressures facing businesses and households, skills shortages, concern about competition, uneven performance across superannuation funds, failing neo banks, the rising numbers of social media 'finfluencers', and corporate greenwashing activities.

International factors also pose challenges, including the deterioration in the global economy and heightened global uncertainty, the war in Ukraine and significant supply chain impacts

“The committee will be probing the supervision and enforcement activities of the ACCC, APRA and ASIC, as well as their policy development and governance processes.”

Public hearing details

Date: Tuesday 11 October 2022
Time: 9.15am – 4.45pm
Location: Main Committee Room, Parliament House, Canberra

Program

9.15 am           Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

11.45 am         Break

12.30 pm         Australian Prudential Regulation Authority

2.45 pm           Australian Securities and Investments Commission

4.45 pm           Finish

The hearing will be broadcast live at aph.gov.au/live.

 

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