Frydenberg's delayed bank play
The Federal Government is set to announce its road map in response to the Banking Royal Commission today.
It will not be a reformist document.
The 'in your face, barely anything's changed' ethic is everywhere in finance in Australia.
It's as if Ken Hayne's royal commission, ignored with such contempt by most of those feeding off the mortgage supply chain since his report landed in February, never took place.
Conflicted remuneration remains part and parcel of Australian finance and it will soon recolonise financial planning.
With APRA having proven itself to be a complete and utter patsy at their sanctioning of Commonwealth Bank last year and showing no spine this year as the self-assessments percolate into the public domain, where is the trust and confidence in an industry that's wilfully withheld material of the utmost importance from the capital market and depositors?
Banking in Australia is a tired industry, its credibility shot.
Unpublished self-assessments must be published today. Immediately.
Listed banks and insurers still defying the public interest - Bendigo, AMP, Suncorp - will not be trading on the ASX this morning if their assessments do not land by the time the market opens soon.
ASIC will be as equal a rack and ruin as APRA if does not throw these miscreants the book.
On the whole the Australian banking industry is poorly run, poorly regarded, managers have no productivity story to fall back on, and bank governance and any conversations around corruption all leave much to be desired.
Bankwest is still a machine rather than a subset of the CBA list. Same with St George and Westpac.
The Sydney banking scene is a disgraced legacy. Optimising these four enterprises was an obvious industry priority, one demanded by the needs of the customers that banking is there to serve.
Banking in Australia needs to be about one really big brand and a monumental, massive shared services platform.
Sydney banks were talking shared services, once, many times.
Josh Frydenberg's road map today will have little to do with this week's conversations on a brighter platform for banking,
The only good news Frydenberg can announce this week is the banking ok for FirstMac.