Speaking at the bank’s annual general meeting in Bendigo yesterday, Mr Hirst said his organisation was relatively small in the financial services industry but “punches well above [its] weight”.
“In the past few years, that has included having to fight with one hand tied behind our back as regulatory intervention often favoured the largest industry participants,” he said.
Mr Hirst backed the new government’s financial services inquiry (nicknamed ‘Son of Wallis’) and the promise of a moratorium on further reform until the inquiry has reported.
“It is vital that the inquiry turns its collective mind to the sheer weight of regulation that is being driven through the industry and the cost of that to business and consumers,” he said.
While he acknowledged much of the current regulation is warranted – and “even belated” – he said some of it is merely “a solution looking for a problem”.
In addition, Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens holds the same view, he said.
“Governor Stevens believes the current level of regulatory change facing the industry is daunting and that we need to contain the growth in the regulatory agenda,” said Mr Hirst.
Mr Stevens has pointed out that the “finite energies and resources” of regulatory bodies must be directed towards “the most important problems”.
“The governor’s call to focus on the most important problems has great merit and should be applied to the queue of mandated industry-wide change,” said Mr Hirst.
Son of Wallis could provide a hierarchy of priorities for all stakeholders in the industry, which would have financial stability at the top, followed by securing funding for the economy, data security, consumer protection and then payments innovation, he said.
“It would be interesting to line up such a hierarchy against the current change agenda,” said Mr Hirst.
