The latest progress report - the fifth in an ongoing series - from former Commonwealth auditor-general Ian McPhee was published yesterday. He has taken on the role of independent governance expert, assessing the six-point reform plan of the Australian banking industry on behalf of the Australian Bankers' Association. (Report 4 was issued on 21 April 2017) McPhee said banks had continued to make good progress delivering reforms, with many of the initiatives now in the implementation phase.  "While we still need to see more rubber on the road, it is evident that there are early signs of the reforms starting to gain traction.  "The focus going forward will increasingly be on the efforts of individual banks to embed the reform measures to deliver on the goals of the six industry initiatives.  "This is a long-term endeavour, but done well, consumers and other stakeholders can be expected to benefit from this significant investment in reform." He reported that 20 of the ABA's member banks have appointed customer advocates, who are already assisting customers to resolve issues and proactively improving customer outcomes. Other achievements in the quarter to July 2017 included: The start of the redraft of the Code of Banking Practice with the new Code to be finalised by December 2017. Major banks have implemented the industry's conduct background check protocol to stop individuals with a poor conduct record moving around banks undetected. Non-major banks have committed to implement the protocol by 1 October 2017. Meetings with lenders, mortgage brokers and aggregators to progress potential self-regulatory responses to change remuneration and governance practices in the mortgage industry. Overall, those initiatives where banks have control over design and implementation remain on track to be delivered within anticipated timeframes, while measures requiring government or regulatory involvement may take longer.  Other items may take longer than planned: this report commends the ABA for appointing Edelman Intelligence to measure the outcomes of the reform program at an industry level "with the expectation that the first wave of consumer research will be published shortly after the release of this report." A second wave of research, incorporating the perspectives of both consumers and bank employees, is expected to be published "early in 2018". The appendices to the report show a raft of "initiatives", among them some of the most important changes, that are "on alert for slippage against plan," and these include:  work with ASIC "to enhance the current breach reporting framework" is in limbo, with an "adjustment needed to the original plan" and more input from government and ASIC; the agreement that "each bank commits to ensure it has overarching principles on remuneration and incentives to support good customer outcomes and sound banking practices" - due for completion by December 2017; items that have been widely published, but now held back subject to the completion of the Ramsay Review: the identification of a possible model for a last resort compensation scheme, and all that flows from this point has