NZ banks braced for judgment day

Analysts expect no horror stories from the New Zealand's banking sector review out today. Photo / 123rf

Analysts expect there to be some areas where banks can do better but no horror stories in a report on culture and conduct due out today.

The Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank of New Zealand will report findings from a six-month review of New Zealand's banking sector, spurred by Australia's Royal Commission into misconduct in the finance sector.

Australia's inquiry uncovered instances of financial institutions who charged fees for no service, charged fees to dead people, and lied to regulators.

But Roy Davidson, an analyst with Craigs Investment Partners, said while it was hard to predict what might be in the review, he doubted it would be as bad as the Royal Commission.

"This is based on information supplied by the banks on a voluntary basis," he said. "The Australian inquiry has used legal powers to force banks to supply information. I wouldn't expect it to be as bad."

Davidson said the New Zealand report could touch on some of the same topics of concern raised in Australia like the vertical integration of the banks and the potential for conflicts of interest.

Culture, including sales incentives and responsible lending, has been on the radar across the Ditch and has already seen changes in Australia with banks moving to gather more expenses data after they were found to be heavily reliant on household expenditure data from the statistics bureau.

John Kensington, KPMG's head of banking, said recent commentary from FMA chief executive Rob Everett indicated there would be some industry-wide issues that required change.

"There will be things for the banks to work on."

But he doubted individual banks will not be singled out for any misdemeanours.

Kensington said there would be degrees of maturity and readiness in the sector to make change. "Some banks will be given some things to work on and some will have longer lists than others."

Kensington said the big questions then would be how long banks would be given to fix the issues and what checks would be done to see it was happening.

"There will be some remediation for some if not all the banks."

He said the world had changed and people frowned on anyone that took advantage of their size to make more profits than peer industries.

John Kensington, KPMG's head of banking, expects some industry-wide issues that require change.

Kensington said he expected there to be some surprises, a little bit of shock, but also balance too.

David Tripe, a banking expert with Massey University, said he doubted there would be huge amount issues in the report.

"There will be one or two things they tut-tut about," he said.

Today also sees Westpac bank release its full-year report with predictions its New Zealand arm will have a strong result in line with competitors ANZ and BNZ which reported profits rises last week.