AFR Banking Summit

The Australian Financial Review Banking Summit was held on Tuesday 18 March at the Hilton Sydney, which heard from a number of industry, media, and regulatory speakers.

Speaking at the event, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) Chair John Lonsdale touched on a number of key points relating to APRA’s prudential framework and a number of governance issues and proposals from the regulator.

Discussing APRA’s recently released discussion paper containing several proposals around cross-industry prudential standards on governance, Mr Lonsdale noted that the end goal is to ensure regulated entities are managed by people with the right skills, experience and character for the challenges of a highly interconnected global financial system and a rapidly evolving operating environment.

He also noted that APRA is currently reviewing thresholds used to distinguish between significant financial institutions and non-significant financial institutions that benefit from simpler and lower requirements in a range of areas including capital and liquidity.

Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter also spoke at the Summit, where she discussed the Central Bank’s development of monetary policy and its myriad impacts on the Australian economy.

Ms Hunter noted that the transmission of changes to the cash rate throughout the domestic economy occurs through a variety of channels, including household cashflow, savings and investment, asset prices, credit availability, and the exchange rate.