The second edition of the Government’s Banking and Finance Regulatory Initiatives Grid is scheduled for publication in September.

It is intended to list the reform priorities and initiatives of 9 contributing agencies (not including the Privacy Commissioner) that will materially affect the financial sector over the next 2 years.

Recent speeches by representatives of APRA, ASIC and Austrac give a clear preview of their plans.

ASIC has published a report on regulatory simplification.

But it is not yet clear whether regulation will be more coordinated both in terms of timing and impact.

The Government’s 3 day Economic Reform Roundtable ended on 21 August 2025.

There was significant support for the regulation pendulum swinging back to making regulation more efficient by creating a single, nationally consistent approach, if not less regulation.

The Treasurer identified 10 reform directions, including progress towards a single national market, better regulation and how we cut the clutter when it comes to regulation.

Within each of the 10 areas, the Government is targeting some areas where it can act with urgency.

In the area of financial services, the Government will ask the Council of Financial Regulators to coordinate regulatory improvement ideas provided by the financial regulators, including working out where regulation is not serving its intended purpose.

The Government says it will introduce a regulatory reform bill this year to progress the ‘tell us once’ principle, which is about not asking people to supply the same information over and over again for different purposes.

There was no mention of retail investor protection, depositor protection or consumer protection.

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