Years of diligent advocacy work by the Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA) has resulted in the Treasurer of Australia establishing a regulatory roadmap to ensure the country’s major financial service regulators coordinate and provide visibility of proposed regulatory reforms going forward. COBA, World Council’s direct member organization in Australia, spent the last several years meeting with key government officials and regulators to advocate for the creation of a financial sector regulatory grid.

Based on these efforts, the new regulatory roadmap will help regulators avoid duplication, engage with financial service businesses and improve implementation practices. This change to coordinate and provide a regulatory roadmap will particularly help medium-sized and smaller financial service providers, allowing them to better anticipate regulations that might impact their business in the future and the resources needed for compliance.

The regulatory roadmap is based on a system currently used in the United Kingdom, and will be a rolling, 24-month program of regulatory initiatives impacting the financial sector. The roadmap will be updated twice a year and include proposed legislation, rules and regulations, and standard making, consultation processes and data collection processes. This advanced planning and coordination is expected to facilitate better engagement between financial service providers and regulatory agencies with coordinated priorities and greater visibility to better discuss regulatory implementation methods.  

Click here to read the Treasurer’s announcement and learn more about the key regulatory advocacy success of COBA.