Macquarie Bank to make remediation plan for recurring compliance failures

The bank failed to prevent 11 suspicious orders placed on the electricity futures market.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has imposed conditions on Macquarie Bank after “multiple and significant compliance failures.”

ASIC Commissioner Simone Constant said, ‘Our intervention underscores our concern with the recurrent nature of Macquarie’s failures, which were caused by ineffective supervision and weak compliance and control management.’

Weaknesses ranged from poor change management practices, unclear roles and responsibilities, and an incomplete understanding of its own processes and controls, including around data governance, ASIC said in a statement on 7 May 2025.

Macquarie Bank must prepare a remediation plan to address the failures in their futures dealing business and OTC derivatives trade report functions.

The investment bank must also appoint an independent expert to review and report on the adequacy of the remediation plan.

They must also have an independent expert assess the operation effectivities of its remediation activities.

“Macquarie must take responsibility and put in place appropriate action to remediate the repeated failures and underlying governance and supervisory failures,” said ASIC Commissioner Simone Constant in a statement on 7 May 2025.

Constant and ASIC particularly expressed disappointment on Macquarie’s supposed failure to prevent 11 suspicious orders being placed on the electricity futures market via Macquarie terminals.

Separately, in September 2024, ASIC’s Markets Disciplinary Panel fined Macquarie a record $4.995m for failing to prevent suspicious orders being placed on the electricity futures market.

Many of the OTC derivatives trade reporting breaches continued for a number of years without detection, according to ASIC.