Australia & NZ

"Ultimately there will only be one form of finance, and that will be green finance," said APRA head of insurance Geoff Summerhayes at the ACSI annual conference.

ASX has made available the first of seven ‘drops’ of software code, with additional functionality set to be released at eight-week intervals.

Australia may emerge as a world-leader in RegTech adoption as a remedy to banking culture and misconduct issues, say Jeff Kupfer and Stephen Scott at Starling Trust.

Open banking, digital banking, cloud-based infrastructure and RegTech are the key drivers of technology-led change in the Australian banking sector, according to S&P Global Ratings.

The Australian Taxation Office is collecting data from cryptocurrency exchanges to feed into its data-matching technology to identify tax evaders.

The revisions will require superannuation licensees to review their performance, analyse member outcomes, and take action to address areas that require improvement.

The proposed measures will put the consumer at the heart of decision-making and make good outcomes the bottom line, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi.

The FPA says advisers are worried old cases will be judged against newer, stricter advice standards and they may not be covered by professional indemnity insurance.

The associations say a preferred approach would be to recognise Singapore's and Australia's regimes as a whole rather than the current benchmark-by-benchmark approach.

The additional provisions reflect expected payouts for NAB's employed advisers, and the costs to review advice provided by its self-employed adviser network.