Banking royal commission: investors will break out the Moet over modest recommendations

While welcome, the Hayne changes fall short of what the public might have expected, given the volume and variety of the illegality and amorality unearthed last year.

Banks’ and fund managers’ share prices may well surge today, as the modesty of the final report dawns on investors and financial executives alike.

Bottle shops in Sydney’s and Melbourne’s east would be well advised to stock up on Moet.

The 76 recommendations — pricey, at more than $13 million a pop given the $1 billion-plus cost of the whole exercise — amount to little more than a vigorous spring clean of the financial sector. These are sensible but modest reforms, many of which had been in the pipeline for some time.

While welcome, the changes fall short of what the public might have expected, given the volume and variety of the illegality and amorality unearthed last year, and the public attention it received.

No criminal referrals were made. There was no ban on so-called vertical integration, which allows different types of financial entities to own each other, as some had feared.

There were no concrete changes recommended for pay, rather calls for temperance and regular reviews. The so-called BEAR (bank executive accountability regime), already cumbersome, is to be jointly administered by the Australian Securities & ­Investments Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, guaranteed to make it even more so.

One of the biggest changes was also the most anticipated: borrowers will have to pay mortgage brokers directly for their services rather than lenders paying them via a commission, as occurs now. That’s a major blow for brokers, who will struggle to convince mums and dads to cough up thousands of dollar to compare home loans.

Carve-outs for “grandfathered commissions” will go too, also as expected. But each of the major banks has, as the final report noted, “already announced steps to reduce or eliminate payments of grandfathered commissions in their financial advice businesses”.

As for the severity of the nine recommendations for superannuation, the main lobby group for super funds effusively welcomed them, saying they would “make our world-class superannuation system even stronger”. Hmm.

Here, the main recommendation was for savers to have one default fund, which successive ­inquiries including the Productivity Commission’s recent ­effort, had already recommended.

Consultants will be rapt following recommendation 56, which would mandate annual reviews of “culture” for “all financial ser­vice entities”.

It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say recommendation 57, for APRA “to build a supervisory program focused on building culture that will mitigate risk … (and) assess the cultural drivers of misconduct”, gives a flavour of many recommendations.

Reflecting the outcome of the global financial crisis itself, where only one banker was successful criminally prosecuted, no one was referred for prosecution.

That said, Kenneth Hayne savaged National Australia Bank’s leadership such that the chairman and chief executive might decide to step down.

A new (and unwelcome) oversight body, “staffed by a permanent secretariat”, is unlikely to upset ASIC and APRA too much.

Some may scoff at recommendation 18 to massage the Bankers Code of Conduct, but the changes include an end to “informal overdrafts” and “dishonour fees” on basic accounts. That, unexpected, was my favourite recommendation.