評論
打印
BANKS often face conflicts of interest when it comes to advising their customers.
當提及為客戶提供咨詢建議的時候，銀行經常面臨利益沖突。
The regulators who are supposed to stop the abuses that can result are not always up to the job.
監管者本應阻止可能產生后果的濫用，但他們總不能勝任這份工作。
But when wrongdoing does finally come to light, the penalties can be vast.
但當公司罪狀最終大白天下的時候，處罰就非常巨大。
Financial institutions in Britain have had to lay aside 40bn pounds ($52bn) to compensate customers mis-sold payment protection insurance.
英國金融機構需要放棄400億英鎊（520億美元）用于賠償錯賣客戶的支付保護險。
Wells Fargo was fined $1bn by American regulators and ordered to reimburse the people to whom it had sold useless insurance or mortgages with inflated fees.
美國監管部門對富國銀行罰款10億美元并要求賠償那些被銀行推銷購買無用保險或有通貨膨脹費的抵押貸款的客戶。
Now it is the turn of Australian banks to face a reckoning.
現在輪到澳大利亞銀行面臨審判了。
A royal commission has exposed a litany of abuses.
一所皇家調查委員會曝光了一大串濫用罪責。
Its interim report, published on September 28th, paints the country's financial institutions as consumer-crushing oligopolies.
其9月28日發布的中期報告將國家金融機構描繪成壓榨消費者的寡頭。
Lenders charged hidden fees long after providing services, and for some services they never provided at all, on occasion to people who were dead.
在提供服務后，貸方收取隱藏費用，有時還會對那些根本沒有提供的服務收取費用，有時還把這招用在已去世人身上。
They siphoned off at least A$1bn ($720m) of compulsory pension savings in excessive charges.
在額外收費中，他們至少對強制養老金儲蓄收取了10億澳元（7.2億美元）的費用。
And they offered mortgages that they should have known were far too expensive to afford.
而且他們還提供抵押貸款，他們本應該知道這種貸款太過昂貴，客戶支付不起。
Their behaviour, said Kenneth Hayne, the head of the inquiry, was not just immoral, but criminal.
他們的行為，負責該調查的肯尼思·海恩稱，不僅是不道德的，更是犯罪。
The banks have tried to pin the blame on a few rogue staff. In fact the wrongdoing was pervasive—and turbo-charged by government policy.
銀行想要把責任歸咎于幾名流氓員工。事實上，這種犯罪行為很普遍—并且是由國家政策所導致的。
Until relatively recently few Australians sought financial advice. But the introduction of compulsory private pensions in the 1990s gave them savings to invest.
直到最近幾名沒什么澳大利亞人尋求理財建議了。但是20世紀90年代強制私人退休金的引入給了他們用于投資的存款。
At A$2.6trn, Australia's superannuation pot is now one of the world's largest. It has sustained a swelling wealth-management industry.
澳大利亞2600億澳元的退休金罐現在是全球最大之一。這筆退休金維持了一個膨脹的財務管理工業。
The inquiry levelled sharp criticisms at outsized commissions.
在龐大的傭金面前，調查等同于尖銳的批評。
These, it found, had encouraged financial advisers to direct customers' savings towards high-cost,
調查發現，這些傭金激勵著財務顧問將客戶存款引入高成本
poorly performing funds and insurance providers to sell policies that would never pay out.
表現糟糕的基金，并激勵著保險供應商推銷那些根本不會有賠付款的保險。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
