A bit of a fizzer or a manifesto for reform? The former seems the better epithet for the final report of the banking royal commission, though the latter rhetoric suited all sorts - from Anna Bligh, CEO of the ABA, to Labor leader Bill Shorten.
Upending the business model of entities along the mortgage broking value chain is the most material recommendation for the financial sector arising from Kenneth Hayne's royal commission, released yesterday.
Giving industry codes the force of law, with clear sanctions where they are breached, is a second.
The rest of the report is essentially technocratic, in topic and method. And while Hayne and his co-writers are mostly on the money with their analysis, key sections are written deadpan.
"Get on with your job" is the admonition, in different words, directed at ASIC, APRA and the senior management teams and boards of bank. There's a program of law reform, but in the main these are in line with existing thinking of the industry, regulators and government.
The dismay and passion suiting the occasion was left for the perennial critics of banks.
The Finance Sector Union, one of the more informed antagonists of a powerful industry, found the commission's final report cringeworthy reading.
"Rather than asking for more time, as was clearly needed, he has sent the problems back to the regulators to deal with," FSU National Secretary Julia Angrisano said in the first of an animated series of media releases yesterday.
"We needed bold solutions. We got marginal, incremental change that does not address the underlying issues."
Alan Kirkland , CEO of consumer lobby CHOICE, was a more generous critic.
"Hayne makes it clear: the laws that govern the banking system have not been up to the job," Kirkland said.
"Simple community expectations—that financial institutions should act honestly and in their customers' best interests—have been undermined by decades of industry lobbying, resulting in laws that are riddled with carveouts and exceptions. This has to end."
Chastising the likes of the Australian Banking Association, Kirkland said Hayne's approach "represents a key turning point for the industry and its lobby groups: will they pretend to accept the recommendations then lobby to undermine them behind closed doors, as they have with every other major reform?
"Or will they realise that if they want to win back community trust, this time they need to act with integrity?"
"The report is also a damning indictment of industry self-regulation. For too long, we have allowed banks to write and enforce their own rules. This means that the rules are weak and the consequences for breaking them are non-existent."