Speaking before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations, a finance industry representative has suggested following the United Kingdom's lead and extending its accountability regime for executives to the insurance sector and other sectors in the financial services industry.

Greg Medcraft, chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), has actively canvassed extending to the financial services industry the Bank Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR), designed to strengthen executive accountability in the banking sector.

“(A)t the moment it is restricted to banks, while in the UK it extends to insurance companies,” Medcraft said in a Money Management report. “That might be an area to be thinking about as a next phase. In the UK it has rolled out even beyond that, to financial services entities. When you think about it, fundamentally it is a great concept because it is about individual accountability. I think that is something that has probably been sorely lacking, because often, as you know around the world, institutions and then shareholders get penalised because management behave badly.”


Related stories:
ASIC unveils regtech showcase event
ASIC invests in data analytics, digital investigation capabilities