26 September 2023

APRA to resume suspended reforms

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The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has announced that public consultations on prudential policy reforms are to resume along with a phased resumption of the issuing of new licenses.

Announcing the moves, APRA said the activities had been halted earlier in the year because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chair of APRA, Wayne Byres (pictured) said it was appropriate, having originally suspended the activities for six months, to provide interested parties with greater certainty about critical elements of prudential policy and the provision of new licences.

“In January this year, APRA published an ambitious policy agenda,” Mr Byres said.

“The onset of COVID-19 necessitated the suspension of many of APRA’s policy and supervision priorities until the end of September.

“This enabled regulated entities to allocate time and resources to manage their own operational challenges in response to the crisis, as well as supporting their customers through this period of significant economic uncertainty.”

Mr Byres said it also allowed APRA to redeploy its resources to monitoring and responding to the impact of a rapidly changing environment.

“In the case of licensing, we considered it appropriate to suspend the issuance of licenses in light of the high level of uncertainty created by COVID-19, which would have created especially acute challenges for new entrants,” Mr Byres said.

“We now believe we can restart both policy consultations and licensing activity. However, it is neither possible nor desirable to pursue our full policy agenda for the time being.”

He said policy reforms to be resumed included the cross-industry prudential standard for remuneration; insurance capital reforms to incorporate changes in the accounting framework; and the prudential standard for insurance in superannuation.

“Aligned with its policy agenda, APRA will also restart consultation on a limited number of its data collections, including the recommencement of its Superannuation Data Transformation project,” Mr Byres said.

He said APRA’s policy program for 2021 was under review.

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