Briefs: Ramsay EDR review done, Walter on advice watch, Medcraft digs bank crowd challenge and more
A panel headed by Professor Ian Ramsay into external dispute resolution schemes, including the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal and the Credit and Investments Ombudsman, has handed its final report to the Australian government, Fairfax Media reports. The minister for financial services, Kelly O'Dwyer, said the government was leaning to "establishing a one-stop-shop for consumer complaints." Ramsay's panel will now look at a compensation scheme of last resort. The Australian government has appointed Cathy Walter as the chair of a new body set up to "professionalise" the financial advice sector, Fairfax Media reports. The new body, the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority, will start on July 1 to set mandatory educational and training requirements, develop and set a national industry exam and create a code of ethics The Australian Taxation Office said it would begin to collect data on debt and borrowing by self-managed super funds from this year, The New Daily reports. At present, the ATO said, "the level of borrowings associated with 'limited recourse borrowing arrangements' is not separately reported to the ATO". Tax Office data does put the total value of assets at SMSFs under LRBAs at December 2016 at around A$24 billion. Australian Securities and Investments Commission's chair, Greg Medcraft, said that familiar banking models would be seriously disrupted in the near future. "I think given that what we're seeing in the pressures that are emerging from trust, I think the big issue in banking is that we will see the banking models get disrupted in the next few years and they will probably break up," Medcraft told the Financial Review. "The markets will probably force them to break up. I think you will see the technology giants enter the banking system. Clearly where we see massive investments in fintech around the world are in lending and payments systems ... the crowd will be such an enormous regulator of behaviour," he said. National Australia Bank said it appointed Matthew Lawrance as chief executive for MLC Super. Lawrance has been acting in the role of NAB's chief technology and operations officer for the past seven months. The bank said that previously Lawrance was executive general manager, NAB Wealth Operations. A New Zealand government review will study reforms of the powers used and shared by the governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to set the official cash rate, reports Fairfax media. In practice, under laws in place since the 1980s, setting the OCR has been a decision for the governor, made after consultation with key subordinates. NZ's minister of finance, Steven Joyce, reportedly commissioned the review late last week, perhaps to head off calls from the opposition Labour Party for more extensive reform. The current RBNZ governor, Graeme Wheeler, is to leave the bank when his term ends in September, and Joyce said