The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) chair, Greg Medcraft has actively canvassed extending the Bank Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR) to other executives working in the financial services industry.
The ASIC chair has told a public hearing of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services that he believes Australia should emulate the situation which exists in the United Kingdom where sectors other than just banking are covered.
“… at the moment it is restricted to banks, while in the UK it extends to insurance companies,” he said. “That might be an area to be thinking about as a next phase. In the UK it has rolled out even beyond that, to financial services entities.”
“When you think about it, fundamentally it is a great concept because it is about individual accountability. I think that is something that has probably been sorely lacking, because often, as you know around the world, institutions and then shareholders get penalised because management behave badly,” Medcraft said.
