The APRA wants to repair our banks in three ways

In June 2017, APRA had a pilot program, which included an independent assessment by the regulator of an institution's risk culture and the involvement of focus groups, surveys and bank observations.

The first pilot test was conducted in the middle of last year and the results were communicated to the bank in November.

APRA had planned a second pilot project, but this one was suspended due to the ABC's prudential investigation.

In late 2017 and early 2018, senior members of the team resigned and APRA decided to "redefine" these reviews, and Mr. Hodge showed Byres a paper on modification of the scope.

We were not trying to be the cultural consultant par excellence. It's ultimately up to the boards to do this job for themselves.

Wayne Byres

"It's an attempt to explain what the refocusing is going to be. And it seems that refocusing is going to be put in place, rather than evaluating – rather than doing APRA doing its own assessment – of the risk culture, to understand how the entity is assessing its risk culture. ? Said Mr. Hodge.

"This is the general reshuffle, yes," says My Byres, adding that it was "nuanced" and that APRA would always make a "sense test" of the banks' risk culture.

"So that does not mean that we would simply look at a process document saying that it is very good. It should still have some kind of meaning to verify it. But we were not, if – we were not trying to be the cultural consultant par excellence. It's ultimately up to the boards to do this job for themselves. "

Byres agrees that he was returning to "a less resource-intensive approach to risk culture."

Hes stated that the regulatory body's experience with pilot programs was that it did not have the resources to achieve "a level close to the coverage we would need".