This afternoon, the Financial markets Authority and the Reserve Bank released a joint report into banking practices in New Zealand. While the process followed may have been incomplete in not seeking public submissions, the findings validation our position.

"...The regulators identified significant weaknesses in the governance and management of conduct risks. These weaknesses have resulted in a number of issues that require remediation. Banks’ lack of proactivity in identifying and remediating conduct issues and risks means vulnerabilities remain. The FMA and RBNZ conclude that the overall standard of banks’ approaches to identifying, managing and dealing with conduct risk needs to improve markedly..."

"...Some key areas have been identified for improvement, including: 

• Greater board ownership and accountability – including being able to properly measure and report on conduct and culture risks and issues.
• Prioritising the identification of issues and accelerating remediation.
• Prioritising investment in systems and frameworks to strengthen processes and controls.
• Strengthening staff reporting channels, including whistleblower processes for conduct and culture issues.
• Removing all incentives linked to sales measures and revising sales incentive structures for frontline salespeople and through all layers of management..."

It is amazing - but then perhaps not considering my experiences - that some banks did not even have a process for track conduct risk until called upon by the inquiry. That's scary but not surprising. In all my dealings with ANZ since this blew up in 2013, that bank and its staff have displayed a total lack of understanding of how their conduct affects customers and their families, and/or how it can affect the bank from a business perspective.

I am concerned that the report relied on information from the (not) ombudsmen/people like the Banking Ombudsman who, in my experience, may be loveley people but not the sort of knife-fighters that we need to represent the people and hold the New Zealand banking community accountable.

Long-term, this report might provide me a foundation of action against ANZ when the accountability karma wheel spins some more but otherwise we're in the terminal phase. Former Prime Minister, sir John Key, is the chair of the board of ANZ New Zealand and today I wrote to him, requesting again that ANZ do the right thing...

On the upside, I am been simply blown away by the amount of support from the communities of which I am a part...thank you...