The nexus of customer behaviour, corporate perception and banking: Australian perspective

ABSTRACT

The Australian Hayne Royal Commission (2017–2019) inquired into misconduct within the banking, superannuation, and financial service sectors. Existing literature produced mixed results with regards to the effectiveness of the Hayne Royal Commission while focusing on the legislative angle. The first major contribution of this paper is it looks at the Hayne Royal Commission through the lens of a customer by creating indices which include the Retail Banking Perception Index, the Monthly Review Score, the Monthly Growth Score, and the Monthly Headline Score. The second major contribution of this paper is it adds to the field of perception analysis for banks by using novel data instead of point in time survey data. By creating these indices, we conclude that banks have been impacted idiosyncratically by the Hayne Royal Commission in terms of customer perception driven by increased transparency.

Acknowledgements

The author(s) are grateful to the anonymous referees for their thorough review and helpful comments, which strengthened the quality of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The author(s) confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article [and/or] its supplementary materials.

Notes

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3 Kenneth Hayne, ‘Final Report of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry’ (2019) <https://treasury.gov.au/publication/p2019-fsrc-final-report/> accessed 19 March 2023.

4 ASIC, ‘Financial Services Royal Commission: Summary of ASIC Enforcement Action’ (2023) <https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/regulatory-index/financial-services/financial-services-royal-commissionsummary-of-asic-enforcement-action/> accessed 19 March 2023.

5 See n 1.

6 Kourabas (n 1).

7 Wishart and Wardrop (n 1); O' Brien (n 1).

8 Crofts (n 1).

9 Tucker and Jubb (n 2).

10 Hedley and others (n 2).

11 Lees and Winchester (n 2); Lees, Winchester and De Silva (n 2).

12 Saxena and Khandelwal (n 2).

13 Anselmsson and Bondesson (n 2).

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24 HRC received 10,000 submissions from members of the public highlighting the nature, magnitude and prevalence of misconduct and conduct falling below community standards in the financial services industry. 2000 of these related policy issues, 621 related superannuation, 222 relating to insurance, and 1114 in response to the Interim Report (Hayne (n 3)).

25 See n 1.

26 Hayne (n 3).

27 ASIC (n 4).

28 Hayne (n 3).

29 See n 1.

30 ASIC (n 4).

31 See n 2.

32 Hayne (n 3).