There are recommendations that seek to change, or add to, the law, or industry codes of conduct, in ways that will increase protections to consumers from misconduct or conduct that falls below community standards and expectations. Those recommendations are:
- about making some provisions of industry codes enforceable (Recommendations 1.15, 1.16 and 4.9) to give certainty and enforceability to the terms of the contract between a financial services entity and its client or a guarantor;
- that the ABA amend the Banking Code (in the ways identified in Recommendation 1.8) to improve access to banking;
- about the enactment of a national scheme of farm debt mediation (Recommendation 1.11);
- about the valuation of land (Recommendation 1.12), the charging of default interest (Recommendation 1.13) and how banks should deal with distressed agricultural loans (Recommendation 1.14);
- that ongoing fee arrangements (whenever made) must be expressly renewed by the client each year (Recommendation 2.1);
- prohibiting advice fees from being deducted from MySuper accounts (Recommendation 3.2) and limiting deduction of advice fees from choice accounts (Recommendation 3.3);
- prohibiting hawking of superannuation products (Recommendation 3.4) and insurance products (Recommendation 4.1);
- that a person should have only one default superannuation account (Recommendation 3.5);
- about the trustee’s conduct in influencing the way employers choose default superannuation funds (Recommendation 3.6);
- that a deferred sales model be established for the sale of add-on insurance (Recommendation 4.3);
- that ASIC impose a cap on add-on insurance commissions (Recommendation 4.4);
- about the duties relating to, and remedies flowing from, misrepresentations and non-disclosures in insurance (Recommendations 4.5 and 4.6);
- to apply unfair contract terms to insurance contracts (Recommendation 4.7);
- increasing scrutiny of related party engagements for insurers of superannuation members through group life policies (Recommendation 4.14), attributing statuses to members of group life policies that are fair and reasonable (Recommendation 4.15) and recommending that a review be undertaken to determine the practicability of legislating universal terms in MySuper group life policies (Recommendation 4.13); and
- establishing a compensation scheme of last resort (Recommendation 7.1).
These recommendations seek to improve the law to protect consumers from the misconduct and conduct that fell below community standards and expectations identified by the Commission. They are recommendations for changes that will reduce the chance that conduct of the kinds identified will happen again, or happen again with the same effect for consumers.