Adele Ferguson is an award-winning investigative journalist best known for her work exposing misconduct and fraud in the Australian banking and financial services sectors.

Show notes

Selected links

• Follow Adele: Website | Twitter
• Banking Bad, by Adele Ferguson
• ‘CBA covered up misconduct by rogue financial planner’, Adele’s 1 June 2013 article
• ‘Banking Bad’, the 2014 Four Corners investigation
• ‘Money for Nothing’, the 2018 Four Corners investigation
• The Financial Services Royal Commission website
• ‘The Theory of Economic Regulation’, seminal article by  George Stigler

Topics discussed

• How did Adele get involved in the story of banking misconduct in Australia? 3:08
• What were some of the scandals exposed by Adele between 2013 and 2017? 7:28
• What sort of pressure was brought to bear on Adele while she was breaking these stories? 17:47
• How did the Banking Royal Commission finally come about? 20:41
• The story of how, in 2013, a motley group of politicians saved the Future of Financial Advice Act. 26:13
• The day Adele heard there would be a Financial Services Royal Commission. 30:07
• Was the Royal Commission the straw that finally broke the housing market’s back? 30:57
• What did Adele learn about mortgage lending during the Royal Commission? 32:18
• Regulatory capture in Australia. 36:04
• Why did the CEO and Chair of NAB announce their resignations when the Royal Commission delivered its final report — and were they warranted? 46:22
• What was the historical context of Australia’s banking misconduct scandals? 52:00
• Have the Royal Commission’s recommendations been implemented? 57:53
• The Royal Commission’s impact on mortgage lending. 58:47