COBCCC chair Jocelyn Furlan
The Customer Owned Banking Code Compliance Committee has renewed its call for mutuals to review their reporting systems to ensure they are capturing code breaches and reporting them.
The COBCCC, which monitors compliance with the Customer Owned Banking Code of Practice, highlighted a problem with under-reporting earlier this year and again in its 2023 annual report, which was published last week.
It said its focus in the current financial year will be to encourage better compliance.
COBCCC chair Jocelyn Furlan said: “Our work in 2022/23 revealed the continuation of inadequate and poor quality reporting to breaches and complaints among some customer owned banking institutions. Too many subscribers reported zero or very small numbers of breaches and complaints again. This is a concerning trend.
“The effectiveness of the code hinges on identifying, reporting and addressing breaches swiftly.”
Among the 57 code subscribers, 13 reported no breaches in the 2021/22 financial year.
“The COBCCC considers zero breaches to be highly unlikely and questions the adequacy and effectiveness of the monitoring and reporting systems and capabilities of customer owned banking institutions that continually report no breaches,” it said.
The committee also said too many subscribers failed to report breaches under the appropriate provisions of the code, relying instead on a general “key promises” provision.
And it said there was a lack of detail about remedial action in breach reports. Around 75 per cent of breaches did not specify long-term remedial action.