The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published its 2020-2024 Corporate Plan, which has been updated to account for the substantial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
APRA’s Corporate Plan continues to be founded on delivering four key community outcomes over the planning horizon:
- maintaining financial sector resilience;
- improving outcomes for superannuation members;
- transforming governance, culture, remuneration and accountability across all regulated institutions; and
- improving cyber resilience across the financial system.
APRA remains committed to delivering on these outcomes, as well as the recommendations of the Royal Commission and Capability Review, as soon as is practicable.
However, COVID-19 has necessitated a rescheduling of planned activities to generate the necessary capacity within APRA and regulated entities to address the most immediate challenges. In the past six months, APRA has announced a range of initiatives – delays to policy consultation and supervisory activity, and targeted regulatory concessions – designed to aid financial institutions to navigate the current difficult environment and continue to support their customers.
APRA’s 2020-2024 Corporate Plan reflects this uncertain environment. It has a high degree of emphasis in the short term on sustaining the resilience of the financial system, given this has been critical to supporting the community so far, and is essential to the economic recovery from the pandemic.
Priority is therefore being given to protecting the financial stability and soundness of regulated entities, fostering their operational resilience and enhancing contingency planning for adverse events. At the same time, APRA will continue its work in other areas with a view to ensuring the longer-term objectives will still be achieved over the four-year planning horizon.
APRA Chair Wayne Byres said the updated plan responded to the impacts of COVID-19 with an appropriate reallocation of resources, whilst maintaining a commitment to long-term strategic objectives.
“The refinements in the refreshed Corporate Plan reflect the profound implications of the pandemic for the financial system and the need for APRA to give priority to the most acute challenges Australia faces in the immediate term.
“APRA has been flexible and responsive to the rapidly changing environment. It has meant that many aspects of last year’s plan have had to be adjusted to ensure APRA is able to dedicate increased resources towards the critical objective of maintaining the resilience of the financial system, in order to maintain public confidence and support the recovery process.
“Given the highly uncertain environment, APRA will continue to monitor the risks and potential vulnerabilities in the financial system, and adjust its plans accordingly. Nevertheless, the four key community outcomes that we have identified remain our priority areas of attention over the medium to long term,” Mr Byres said.
APRA’s 2020-2024 Corporate Plan is available at APRA 2020-2024 Corporate Plan.
