COBA welcoming of improved access to capital for customer owned banking institutions

The Customer Owned Banking Association has welcomed the Government’s release of draft regulations to improve access to capital for customer owned banking institutions.

“This will fix an anomaly in tax law that has restricted our sector’s capacity to issue the full range of regulatory capital instruments,” said Customer Owned Banking Association CEO Mike Lawrence.

“Our member banking institutions have been unable to issue convertible debt instruments because of uncertainty about such instruments’ tax status.

“Greater flexibility for our members to issue debt instruments that qualify as regulatory capital will help level the playing field between investor-owned banks and their customer-owned competitors.

“COBA requested this measure in our May 2017 submission to the Hammond Review into access to capital by mutual companies. As Assistant Treasurer Stuart Robert MP notes in his announcement today, this is the latest instalment in the implementation of the Hammond Review’s suite of reforms to boost the competitive potential of the customer owned sector.

“These reforms are designed to improve access to capital and to remove uncertainties currently faced by cooperatives and mutuals to enable the sector to invest, innovate, grow and compete with investor owned corporations.

“We congratulate the Government and the Opposition for their bipartisan support for this important reform agenda.

“Release of the draft regulations for consultation is a further step in the right direction to improving competition in the banking sector.

"Greater competition delivers greater outcomes for Australian consumers.”

COBA will be making a submission on the draft regulations.