[The Wrap] Bank D-Day looming
Instead of reflecting back on the week, it seems all eyes are on next week. On Monday, at 2pm, the Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank will release their joint report into the conduct of banks in New Zealand.
Friday, November 2nd 2018, 4:00PM
As I noted a couple of weeks ago the regulators have already flagged there won't be any naming and shaming of banks.
In the past couple of days I have interviewed the CEOs at ANZ and BNZ as part of their annual results announcement. Each was asked the question what changes have they made to their businesses since the Royal Commission bomb was detonated.
Interestingly the answer from both was that they had removed sales incentives for front line staff. ANZ chief executive David Hisco reckoned it hadn't made any difference to the bank; rather it was just another piece of counting staff didn't have to do. [Full story here]
Perhaps the most interesting comment was this: "You can't image a customer walking in to make a deposit, or do something, and walk out with a home loan they didn't want."
No, I can't see that happening, but we've seen them walk out with KiwiSaver and probably insurance.
BNZ CEO Angie Mentis too flagged removal of sales incentives; she suggested other changes had been made but didn't detail them.
My take is that they are waiting to see what the FMA/RBNZ says before reacting.
Since the Royal Commission started I've asked myself the question many times; Should we have one here?
Initially, I thought, yeah, not now it's a nah. Part of the reasoning here is that in Australia there was already a prima facie case to answer when all this blew up. The second is that without such evidence here, an enquiry would do a huge amount of damage, maybe unnecessarily, to the whole financial services sector.
The other big story next week will be the Reserve Bank's official cash announcement and Monetary Policy review. While no one is expecting the OCR to move, there is a large amount of interest in the tone and comments which come with the announcement.
It'll be one of those read-the-tea-leaves events.
Roll on next week. In the meantime have a good weekend.
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