The royal commission is focusing on the reasons Australia’s biggest banks and financial services companies have been charging customers fees without providing any services. Correspondence shows executives telling Asic officials that they had mistakenly charged customers fees for no service despite it being a deliberate policy. Senior counsel assisting Michael Hodge provided multiple examples of AMP misleadingly telling Asic that its fee-for-no-service was a mistake and asked Regan what he thought about it. I think they show a culture that’s not as robust as it should be.”Hodge asked Regan why his language was so passive. Peter Kell, Asic’s deputy chair, said he did not believe the financial advice industry was a “profession” yet because it had not reached the standards of a profession.

Source: The Guardian April 17, 2018 07:38 UTC