Trans-Tasman Council on Banking Supervision

Given the important financial linkages between Australia and New Zealand, the Council of Financial Regulators (CFR) places considerable importance on the effective coordination of trans-Tasman crisis resolution and planning arrangements. This coordination is achieved through the Trans-Tasman Council on Banking Supervision (TTBC). The TTBC was established in 2005, by the Australian Treasurer and New Zealand Finance Minister. In addition to CFR agencies, the New Zealand Treasury, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority are members. An updated Terms of Reference for the TTBC came into force in February 2017.

In recognition of the interdependence of the Australian and New Zealand financial systems, both countries enacted legislation in 2006 to implement reciprocal obligations to ensure that the respective bank regulators (APRA and the RBNZ) can support each other in the performance of their regulatory responsibilities. As a result, each bank regulator (APRA and RBNZ) is required to

• support the statutory responsibilities of the other regulator relating to prudential regulation and financial system stability;
• avoid any action that is likely to have a detrimental effect on financial system stability in the other country, to the extent reasonably practicable;
• having regard to urgency or other similar constraint, regulators must consult and consider the advice of each other before exercising a power that is likely to have a detrimental effect on financial system stability in the other country, where reasonably practicable; and
• an administrator or statutory manager appointed to a bank must advise the regulator if a proposed action by them is likely to have a detrimental effect on financial system stability in the other country.

In Australia, these provisions are incorporated into the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Act 1998 and the Banking Act 1959, while in New Zealand they are incorporated into the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989.

Following the global financial crisis in 2008, the TTBC stepped up discussion on crisis coordination. This led to the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation in 2010 which outlined the principles and responsibilities to which the TTBC agencies would have regard when responding to a distress situation in a trans-Tasman banking group. Also see Crisis Management Arrangements.