The past few days of hearings at the Royal Commission "have been sobering for the entire industry", Anna Bligh, CEO of the Australian Banking Association said on Friday."The issues raised have been unacceptable and do not meet the high standards the community rightly expects of banks," Bligh wrote, making no reference to causes.The Finance Sector Union helped out: "The FSU believes systemic cultural problems in many of our financial institutions are created by senior management and company boards, not by workers further down the food chain who are under constant pressure to produce ever increasing product sales."Australia's banks, Bligh said, "are committed to tackling misconduct head-on and strongly back the reforms proposed today by the Turnbull Government to penalise bad conduct within the industry."A stronger range of penalties for misconduct is vital to tackling criminal and unacceptable behaviour by individuals and corporations."The Federal Government on Friday said it would " expand the range of contraventions subject to civil penalties, and also increase the maximum civil penalty amounts that can be imposed by courts, to the maximum of:•     the greater of A$1.05 million for individuals (the penalty now set at $200,000) and $10.5 million for corporations (from $1 million now); or•    three times the benefit gained or loss avoided; or•    10 per cent of the annual turnover (for corporations).In addition, ASIC will be able to seek additional remedies to strip wrongdoers of profits illegally obtained, or losses avoided from contraventions resulting in civil penalty proceedings.ASIC's powers will also be significantly increased, the government said, through:•    "Expanding their ability to ban individuals from performing any role in a financial services company where they are found to be unfit, improper, or incompetent;•    "Strengthening their power to refuse, revoke or cancel financial services and credit licences where the licensee is not fit or proper; and•    "boosting ASIC's tools to investigate and prosecute serious offences by harmonising their search warrant powers to provide them with greater flexibility to use seized materials, and granting ASIC access to telecommunications intercept material."Bligh said industry had supported the strengthening of the penalties regime for misconduct since the Federal Government announced its review 18 months ago, as an outcome of the Financial Services Inquiry."Before today, banks had already recognised the need for change and have put in place a rigorous conduct background check for bank employees to stop those with a history of misconduct simply moving from one institution to another," she said."Many of the issues raised over the last few days are the subject of investigation with changes already underway in the sector to ensure cases such as these cannot reoccur. "The industry expects that further changes should and will be made following the final recommendations of the Commission."