BNK CEO Allan Savins
Loss-making Perth bank BNK Banking Corporation has copped a six-figure penalty from the prudential regulator after it was hit with 18 infringement notices for late submission of financial data.
The March edition of APRA’s monthly banking statistics did not include any disclosures regarding the deposits and loans of BNK because the bank’s Temenos banking system was unable to generate the data for submission to the regulator.
All licensed domestic banks are required to confirm the size of their loan and deposit books each month as part of their compliance obligations.
BNK was 32 days late filing its statistical reports for the month of February and has until 1 August to pay a fine of $247,500 for failing to meet its legal obligations.
The exclusion of BNK-related data from APRA’s February statistics (published at the end of March) triggered public concern that the bank might have lost control of its deposits management and the ability to calculate its liabilities.
If APRA had established this had occurred, BNK would likely have incurred steeper penalties for breaches of prudential standard 910, which lays out the minimum requirements for banks to be adequately prepared should they become a declared entity under the Financial Claims Scheme.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, APRA Member Therese McCarthy Hockey noted that BNK had been able to provide sufficient reporting to ensure APRA could confirm the bank was prudentially sound during the 32 day period it could not comply with the statistical data obligation.
A BNK spokesperson told Banking Day on 3 April that the bank’s inability to supply official data to the regulator was due to a technical fault with its core banking system.
“BNK became aware of this issue in February and informed the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority,” the spokesperson said at the time.
“As a result of this technical issue, BNK is currently unable to generate the internal information needed for the APRA’s Monthly ADI Statistics.
“BNK has confirmed that the delay is the result of a technical error rather than a cyber-attack and is working with Temenos to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
BNK chief executive Allan Savins yesterday said the bank regretted the incident.
“We informed APRA as soon as we became aware of the issue in February and dedicated substantial resources to resolve the issue and submit the outstanding reporting forms,” he said.
“BNK has met all of its reporting obligations for subsequent months.
“While this incident was extremely unfortunate, we can assure APRA and other stakeholders that the rectification work is now complete.”
McCarthy Hockey said the issuing of the fine sent a clear message to the industry of the importance of submitting data on time.
“We expect all entities to be compliant with our reporting standards to ensure APRA always has the most up-to date information on the industries we regulate,” she said.