Australia’s financial regulators need policing

by Dr. Andrew D. Schmulow

The Conversation, (2018), published electronically.

A Productivity Commission report analysing competition in the financial sector has pointed out that our finance regulators have become enablers of an industry that is an impediment to our economic competitiveness and exploitative of their most loyal customers.

It proves the need for a board to oversee the conduct of our financial regulators, policing the bodies that are supposed to be keeping our financial system in check.

It could not have come at a worse time for our big four banks. Perennially pilloried for their rampant market misconduct (fraudulently manipulating benchmark interest rates) and their equally rampant abuse of upwards of hundreds of thousands of consumers across every one of their retail operations at one stage or another – financial advice, life insurance and credit card insurance, just to name a few.

This article first appeared at The Conversation. Also published at Economic Reform Australia and Property Observer.