Five Australian Bankers Association member banks have opted out of the reform program the ABA announced in April, claiming that the initiatives do not apply to their businesses.In an update on the program issued on Friday, the ABA's independent governance expert, Ian McPhee, reported that Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of China, Bank of Sydney, BNP Paribas and United Overseas Bank had opted out.The ABA explanation is that "these banks are wholesale and specialist banks providing products, and services mostly to institutional investors, other financial institutions and high net worth individual or private clients."The reform package was designed to improve consumer protections and raise banking standards for those banks with retail customers.This explanation is at odds with the fact that Bank of Sydney provides a full suite of retail banking and small business products and services. Bank of China and UOB advertise personal banking services on their websites.McPhee said it was important for the ABA to be clear about the extent of participation."While participation in the various initiatives is ultimately a decision for each bank, it nonetheless could be expected that some of the customers of those banks not participating could benefit from the banks adopting or adapting the industry initiatives," he said.In April the ABA announced that the industry would undertake six initiatives: review product sales commissions; make it easier for customers to deal with their banks when things go wrong; provide support for whistleblowers; remove people from the industry for poor conduct; strengthen the Code of Banking Practice; and provide greater support for the regulator ASIC.McPhee said that, overall, good progress had been made advancing these initiatives.However, there had been some delays to the review of product sales commissions and product-based payments. Additional resources have been allocated to that review, he said.Banks identified a number of implementation risks with this part of the program. The banks might not agree about the desired outcomes because any changes may have disproportionate impact on smaller or larger banks. There may also be adverse impacts on staff retention.McPhee said the industry was still working towards identifying success indicators for each of the initiatives."It is important that the industry and individual banks are able to demonstrate progress towards achieving the goals of the various initiatives in a tangible way," he said.Some draft quantitative measures have already been proposed in relation to identifying success indicators for making it easier for customers to deal with banks when things go wrong, and for whistlebower support.McPhee said the absence of a full set of baseline data to be able to compare industry performance over time would be an issue in the first few years of reporting progress.