Sept 3 (Reuters) – Australia’s prudential regulator said on Thursday that it set license conditions for ING’s local unit, requiring the bank to hold more liquidity and capital after it overstated its liquidity position and at times breached minimum requirements.
Here are the details:
• The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) increased minimum liquidity requirements to ING Bank Australia, while further imposing a A$50 million($35.84 million) operational risk capital add-on to penalize higher operational risk and weaknesses in prudential reporting.
• The regulator said it was notified by the Amsterdam-based bank’s local unit in July after identifying miscalculations in its liquidity position over several years that led to overstated Liquidity Coverage Ratios (LCR).
• APRA said while the bank reported LCR of around 160%, the true figure was substantially lower and at times dropped below the mandated 100% requirement.
• The bank, one of Australia’s largest, will also be required to commission an independent review to assess the cause of the reporting failures and its broader risk management and governance practices.
• “We regret that these deficiencies existed in our operations and we are committed to meeting APRA’s expectations when it comes to standards of risk management, governance and regulatory reporting,” said ING Australia CEO Melanie Evans in a separate statement.
($1 = 1.3951 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Nichiket Sunil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
