Dastyari shakes school banking
The Australian Bankers Association is working to a revamped lobbying plan detailed today in the Financial Review.ABA documents reported in the AFR disclose a plan that will involve "rebuilding trust and confidence in financial advice" after the wave of financial planning scandals over recent years, leading to a high-profile Senate inquiry led by Labor senator, Sam Dastyari.It will also involve "detailed work" to convince key political and regulatory figures of the rationale behind the major banks all lifted their mortgage rates in October independently of the Reserve Bank, which the banks blamed on policies requiring them to have larger equity capital buffers to make them more resilient to shocks.The industry's lobby group will no longer advocate some issues - such as climate change and economic security for women, and an affordable housing scheme for low-income and homeless people - in order to focus on its main priority of "repositioning" the industry's image as an "essential and responsible contributor to Australia's current and future prosperity".The ABA confirmed the updated direction to the newspaper.It may be needed.In The Age, bank stirrer Sam Dastyari said: "I intend to recommend to the Senate committee that we get banks out of schools or give them a much greater degree of regulation if they are going to be there."Senator Dastyari, shadow parliamentary secretary for school education and youth, said programs such as the Commonwealth Bank's Dollarmites club had begun as "innocent" schemes by state-owned entities to encourage children to save money.But technology had opened the door for such programs to be used to "groom" young children to become future credit card customers.