Australian prudential regulator has proposed new policies on banking data to boost transparency in the system.
The changes, proposed by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), aim to increase the extent of data on lenders that is available publicly.
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The regulation, if implemented, will encompass all authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) including banks, credit unions and building societies.
Besides boosting transparency, the move is expected to increase accountability of the lenders and support competition.
The proposed APRA plan seeks to make all data collected for its quarterly ADI publications non-confidential, enabling its publication.
Overall, it plans to publish entity-level ADI data associated with currently published industry-level quarterly data and specific historical data of the ADIs.
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By GlobalDataAPRA also proposes to publish commentary from these institutions regarding material revisions to their data.
Currently, APRA publishes less than 1% of the ADI data due to legal restrictions. If the proposals are implemented, the figure will improve significantly.
APRA executive director for Cross-Industry Insights and Data Sean Carmody said: “APRA is committed to increasing transparency about the institutions and industries we regulate.
“Under these proposed changes, APRA intends to publish – for the first time – a range of information about individual ADIs, including their financial performance and property exposures.
“As with the recent inclusion of data from credit unions and building societies in our Monthly ADI Statistics publication, these changes are aimed at further strengthening the ADI sector by enhancing accountability and encouraging competition.”
The move will also help the regulatory agencies and policy makers that rely on APRA data, he added.
APRA has initiated a 12-week consultation on the proposals. The consultation period will conclude on 28 February 2020.
