1000s of bank prosecutions: Shipton

"We need to be taking financial institutions to court more often." James Shipton, the ASIC chair, was blunt but wary at the banking royal commission on Friday.

"The starting point today would be to ask the question and turn our minds to 'why not litigate' this demonstrable breach. That is the clear guidance today that stands today," he said.

ASIC, Shipton said, is "working on - and this is a body of work which will take some time, because it does require some degree of engineering -to develop a performance framework, not just for enforcement, but for our entire regulatory activities."

So, a new KPI engine, this bit inward-looking.

"That will better assess the performance of our enforcement teams, our regulatory teams, and every other team, because I do not think right now we have sufficient frameworks in place for that type of measurement and assessment," he said.

Looking out, with the UK precedent favoured (as almost always), Shipton pronounced himself "a very strong advocate of the BEAR regime being extended across to our areas of responsibility and jurisdiction.

"I mentioned earlier that I believe that we should be having far more deterrent effect on business leaders in financial institutions, and to better enable the efficiency of that deterrent effect, having a BEAR regime that would apply to them would make a direct linkage and make that wish more effective."