What is true compliance? ASIC chair Joe Longo asked at a compliance conference yesterday.
“It’s a culture of compliance built on integrity, trust and ethics in how people work – and not simply legal compliance with the rules. When there’s alignment between what’s preached and what’s practised, it’s much easier to nurture trust by consumers and investors.
“And without that trust as a foundation, the tower of business comes toppling down.”
“In Australia, we’ve seen large, well-resourced businesses that have compliance systems and processes in place” Longo said.
Longo was thinking of Latitude Financial Services, Medibank Private and Optus.
“And still, they’ve failed to prevent the very issues they were designed to avoid. Why?
“Because regulatory compliance was undermined by the culture and ethics of the organisation.
“They had the appearance of compliance – but it was a hollow, empty kind of compliance.”