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RBA, APRA to tackle future bank outages

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) are currently in talks to try to find a solution to the industry's spate of technology glitches.
Written by Luke Hopewell, Contributor

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) are currently in talks to try to find a solution to the industry's spate of technology glitches.

The last 12 months have seen banks, including the ANZ Bank, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank (NAB) and Westpac, all affected by major outages to their technology systems.

In its annual report into the Payments System, the RBA said it was aware of the issues and closely monitored and communicated with the banks involved to resolve issues quickly. The RBA did, however, say that it would consider further action in tandem with the APRA going forward.

"In light of these and other incidents, the Reserve Bank and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority are discussing possible approaches to strengthen the handling of any future operational disruptions to retail payments systems," the RBA said in the report.

While the APRA wouldn't be drawn on what form the new co-operative effort would take when "handling" outages, any action may closely answer calls by consumer action group Choice to better manage complaints stemming from technology issues.

"Regulators should be tasked with monitoring and identifying systemic issues in the banking sector in a more proactive way," Choice said in a report in March, adding that regular reports should be issued to notify the public on how systemic issues are being addressed, as well as a table on how many complaints regulators had received over the issues.

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