CANBERRA, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned against any rash response to the landmark banking royal commission.
The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry delivered its final report to Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Friday who will release it to the public after the share market closes on Monday.
Ahead of receiving the document, which is expected to be hundreds of pages long, Morrison predicted it would contain "legitimate" criticism of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).
However, Morrison said he would not be taking drastic action to avoid damaging the economy.
"It will be a question of what suggestions or measures they put on the table but I will be very mindful that I want to see the oil that lubricates our financial system - which is access to credit - continues to flow, otherwise the consequences would be quite significant," he told Fairfax Media on Friday.
"The easiest way to ensure nobody gets hurt is to lend nobody any money. But if nobody gets lent any money then everybody gets hurt. So I think we have to be sensible."
Commissioner Kenneth Hayne conducted 68 days of public hearings to form the report, hearing from 134 witnesses and receiving more than 10,000 submissions.
He heard evidence of Australia's biggest financial institutions knowingly taking money from dead customers and charging hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for services they never delivered.
Financial services giant AMP made 20 false statements to ASIC about charging for services it never provided, the commission heard.
Experts have speculated that Hayne will recommend a complete overhaul of how banks pay their staff from the bottom up as well as forcing them to sell wealth-management divisions to avoid conflicts of interest.
"Trust is at the core of our financial system and, as we've seen, once it's lost, it's not easily regained," Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.
"Consumers need to be able to trust that the individual or the institution they are dealing with is putting their interests first, second and third.
"The royal commission has shown that too often this has not been the case."
There have also been suggestions that Hayne will recommend that Commonwealth prosecutors take criminal and civil action against the financial institutions.
