Report lauds Australian regulatory model

Australia’s financial services regulatory and supervisory oversight model is amongst the best in the world, according to an international report released this week.

The so-called G30 Report on the Structure of Financial Supervision was released overnight by former chairman of the US Federal Reserve and current chairman of the Group of Thirty, Paul Volker, and found that both Australia and the Netherlands are amongst the best and most effectively regulated regimes in the world.

Commenting on the report, Deloitte Wealth Management and Regulatory leader Sarah Woodhouse said that of the four principal models of supervisory oversight, the Twin Peaks approach adopted in Australia and the Netherlands had been singled out as maybe “the optimal means of ensuring issues of transparency, market integrity, and consumer protection receive sufficient priority”.

Woodhouse said the Twin Peaks model was one that had generated debate in other countries such as France, Italy, Spain and the US.

“It is very encouraging that the G30 report highlights the Australian and Dutch Twin Peaks approach so positively and when discussing the US approach to supervision, refers to the March 2008 US Treasury ‘Blueprint of a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure’, which recognises the current weaknesses (of the US regulatory structure) and advocates a modified Twin Peaks approach as a long-term goal,” she said.