Anna Bligh of ABA: Lessons need to be learned

The head of the banking industry’s lobby group says lessons will be learned from the ‘extremely serious’ charges facing Westpac.

Anna Bligh addresses the house economics committee inquiry on Friday Picture: AAP

The head of the banking industry’s lobby group says lessons will be learned from the “extremely serious” charges facing Westpac, which is embroiled in accusations of facilitating money-laundering and child ­exploitation.

Australian Banking Association chief executive Anna Bligh assured federal politicians that every bank has a common interest in fighting against financial crime.

“I have no doubt there will be lessons to be learnt industry-wide from these investigations,” Ms Bligh told the House of Representatives economics committee in Canberra on Friday.

Financial crime regulator Austrac is taking Westpac to court over 23 million charges of breaching anti-money-laundering rules, with some cases linked to child ­exploitation.

Ms Bligh said Westpac was facing further investigations from the Australian Secur­ities & Investments Com­mission, the Australian Pru­dent­ial Regulation Authority and possibly the Australian Federal Police.

She expected every bank was looking at their systems, because most of these are largely automated, and looking at the resources they allocate to them.

“This is an evolving space and every bank has a common interest in ensuring that they are working to boost our capability nationally in the area of fighting financial crime in all forms,” she said.

The ABA has 22 banks under its umbrella, including the big four, regional banks and international banks with an Australian banking licence. Friday’s hearing is an expansion of the committee’s work on the banking system ­beyond its established investigations into the big four banks.

AAP