Will CBA executives be first to feel bite of BEAR?
Senior executives within the Commonwealth Bank may be the first to be exposed to the Government’s Bank Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR) if the Government’s legislation timetable goes to plan.
The Federal Treasurer, Scott Morrison has declared the enabling legislation will be introduced to the Parliament in October and he expects little push-back on its implementation within either the House of Representatives or the Senate.
If the legislation were to pass into law before the end of the year, it means it will have been enacted before the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) completes its current probe into the Commonwealth Bank with at least some of its powers being available for use by the regulator.
Morrison on Tuesday said on radio that he was confident that APRA would have the appetite to utilise the powers conferred by the legislation if it believed they were necessary.
“I am very confident they will take that action,” the Treasurer said in answer to a question relating to the willingness of the regulator. “We just saw them take very strong action yesterday regarding the Commonwealth Bank. They are putting in place a very wide-ranging inquiry into CBA which they won’t be taking three years to do, or five years to do or however long Bill’s showboat arrangement would take.”
“What they are going to do is do this within about six months and then they will be taking action. APRA won’t recommend anything, it will do it. Just like ASIC the company regulator, they are also investigating the Commonwealth Bank. They don’t have to recommend to anybody to do anything. They will just act.”
“What we are doing as a Government is allowing our regulators to use their powers, to take action, to hold people to account and where we think those rules need to be toughened up, whether it was with ASIC a few years ago or now in the banking sector, we are toughening them up, giving them the powers and saying – get on with it,” the Treasurer said.
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