Bill Shorten outlines five areas bank royal commission would examine

Bill Shorten outlines areas banks royal commission would cover after jotting ideas down on his way to an interview.

Bill Shorten has outlined key areas of his banking royal commission.

Bill Shorten has outlined five key areas that he expects his banking royal commission would examine, having jotted down the ideas on his way to a radio interview in Melbourne.

The Opposition Leader has faced mounting pressure over his vagueness of his policy, which Treasurer Scott Morrison has derided as a “blank sheet of paper”

Interviewed by 3AW’s Neil Mitchell, Mr Shorten today indicated the inquiry was “not necessarily” aimed at corruption, but would examine “systemic and widespread problems” in the banking sector.

“I wrote down a little list as I was coming in here because obviously this is a key issue,” he told the broadcaster.

“I think a royal commission would need to look at vertical integration. You know, are banks being, because they’re expanding to so many different products, is there pressure to cross-sell things?

“And is there proper whistleblower legislation? Are the remuneration structures in banks working properly?

“How are the compensation schemes going when there are problems? And should there be a scheme of last resort compensation?”

Mr Shorten, asked if the “remuneration structures” meant scrutiny of executive pay, said he was “not sure that that’s the specific thing that I was getting at”.

“What I was getting at was; where you’ve got a system where all of the incentives are heavily weighted towards flogging the products to customers who don’t need them. You know, how many people have you met or know who’ve received in the mail irresponsible lending — in other words, credit cards or credit card limits that they can’t sustain, and then you see people go to the wall?”

Malcolm Turnbull today met with bank representatives who assured him the big four institutions would absorb the impact of new taxes to increase funding for the corporate regulator, ASIC, and not inflict that burden on customers.

“We are putting real, decisive action to ensure that the corporate regulator, with all of its powers, has the resources to do its job better and that the banks change their ways to make sure that they treat their customers better,” the Prime Minister said after the meeting.

“What Mr Shorten has proposed, as you know, is a royal commission that would take many years, that would compensate nobody and the only financial benefits arising out of that royal commission would be given to the legal profession.

“What he has proposed is lawyers first; we are putting customers first.”