Ethical Financial Sector: Conduct, Commission, and Charging Practices

This report provides a comprehensive overview of ethical conduct within the Australian financial sector, focusing on the importance of ethical standards and the impact of the Banking Royal Commission. It explores the reasons behind the commission's establishment, highlighting misconduct and failur...Read More

Dealing ethical financial sector
workplace

Table of Content
1.0 Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2.0 Explaining ethical conduct in Australian business & the financial service industry.............3
3.0 Reason for which Banking Royal Commission happen........................................................4
4.0 Manner in which ethical behavior within the business is applied at the time of charging for
the services...................................................................................................................................5
5.0 Ways to make for ethical decisions in the business when charging for the services.............6
6.0 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................7
7.0 Recommendations..................................................................................................................7

Executive summary
The present report states the ethical standards that need to be followed by the company
operating their business in Australia. In order to stop the misconduct happen by employees or
director within the company, Banking Royal Commission has been established by Australian
government.
1.0 Introduction
Ethical conduct means as acting in a constant ways with what an individual and the
societies that typically think are the good values. Ethical behavior deemed to be good for the
business and includes demonstrating respect for the key moral principles that involves honesty,
equality, diversity, fairness, dignity and individual rights. The report highlights the ethical
conduct stated by Australian business and also presents the reason behind Banking Royal
Commission.
2.0 Explaining ethical conduct in Australian business & the financial service industry
In Australia, ethical conduct of business referred as company should treat its customers as
well must remain honest with regards to its business practices. Ethical code as per Australian
business focuses on showing respect for privacy and an individuality along with direct & honest
communication, negotiation etc (Kia, Halvorsen and Bartram, 2019). Ethical behavior of the
business revolves around being as upfront, presenting itself honestly and judging others on basis
of their skills, actions etc. based on their rank or the title.
Ethical conduct of Australian business intends for providing he guidance for the directors
and the employees on standards that the Australian expects in conducting their business
operations. This code has been mainly endorsed by Board of the directors and is applied to all
contractors, directors and the employees.
This ethical conduct of Australia some of the standards which needs to be followed the financial
service company that are as follows-
 They must be aware of the conflicts and must prefer customer interest as the top priority
in event of conflict. If conflict occurs between personal interest and the Ethical conduct
of Australian, then the firms should take corrective action for removing and managing
conflict in order to avoid the detriment to the Australian Ethical.

 An entity should not indulge in insider trading activity which means passing any kind of
secret information about the company to any other person or dealing in the firm’s
investment (Underhill and et.al., 2018). The trading undertaken must comply with
procedures set out in Australian Ethical share trading type of policy.
 The financial institution and business entity must not make any unauthorized payments or
gains. It is the general rule that indicate, firm must not accept discounts, services,
gratuities, gifts or any other gain the people who are conducting the business in
compliance with the Australian Ethics.
3.0 Reason for which Banking Royal Commission happen
Banking Royal Commission was been established or set up in the late December after the
public pressure from that of the whistleblowers, the greens, consumer groups, labor and some of
the national MPs (Cull and Melville, 2018). Establishment of commission followed with several
revelations in media of the culture in relation to greed within various Australian banking or the
financial institution.
Subsequent parliamentary recommended royal commission, noting that lack of the
regulatory intervention by appropriate government authorities and the revelations made later
reflected that the banking institution were very much involved in the money laundering activities
for the drug syndicates, that turned blind eye to the terrorism financing and has ignored the
statutory reporting related responsibilities & impropriety within foreign exchange trading.
The Australian governed had established Royal Commission in the late 2017 after the
series of the banking and the financial scandals which had seen the Australian banks in paying
higher than $ 1 billion in terms of remediation and the fines since 2009 or 2008 financial crisis
took place.
The central or major task of this commission was stated as to inquire, report into whether
any conduct with regards to financial service companies may have resulted to the misconduct &
whether any of the conduct, behavior, practices and the business activities with those of an
entities fall below the community expectations and standards (Steen, McGrath and Wong, 2016).
The commission emphasized on the financial services facilitated to the consumers and the small

enterprises. It reviewed variety or different range of the activities involving fees for no kind of
services, trailing commissions, incentives that are not aligned with the interest of the customers,
conflict of an interest, insurance products, and failure of the compliance system & tardiness of
the breach remediation & reporting.
4.0 Manner in which ethical behavior within the business is applied at the time of charging for
the services
The numerous kinds of scandals and the fraudulent behavior that are uncovered by Royal
Commission led to comeback of an ethics within the workplace. Encouraging the ethical
behavior eat the work enables in building strong team and raising the productivity. It helps
company in maintaining a reputation for the strong values that is directly aligned with mission.
Research reflects that businesses with the strong ethical behavior and culture had shown
reduction in the misconduct of an employee. There are mainly 5 ways in creating a ethical
workplace that are as follows-
Setting clear expectations- the code of conduct or rules of an organization must define
expectation for the behavior of an employee in the simple & clear language. It must involve the
manner in which employees must interact with one another, customers and stating the behavior
which would be acceptable and non-acceptable within a workplace (Brandweiner and Morey,
2017). Such expectation serves as the guide for the managers, setting out when they require
intervening and in taking disciplinary actions.
Leading by example- Managers require to model behavior in a way that they expect to
see among their staff. It the employees could see other, specifically roles that they report in
behaving ethically, team is seen as more likely to adopt same kind of values and behavior.
Rewarding or appreciating good behavior- Ethical behavior like when the employee
goes beyond for putting his or her own interest aside for always doing the thing that is suitable
for client, must be actively appreciated and held as setting example for the other people. For
example- ABC Ltd incorporated ethical standards while reviewing performance of an employee.
Feedback mechanisms- Under this firm must ensure that there exists a clear feedback
mechanism in the place through which employees could report any kind of unethical behavior

that they witness. Such mechanism allows the staff in making the reports without any fear of
adverse action that is been taken against it.
Training- In this company should hold workshops and facilitate routine training with
respect to the way in which problems is been solved ethically.
5.0 Ways to make for ethical decisions in the business when charging for the services
Defining problem- Under this leaders would be deciding on the reason for which ethical
decisions are needed to be made and results that are been desired for decision.
Consult the resources & seeking assistance- In the next step, leaders will work on
developing the strategy by making use of resources and the people present within the premises.
Leaders are requiring gaining clarity from the other sources at the time of creating the strategy
for tackling an issue.
Think about lasting impacts- At the time of determining problem and seeking for the
viable resources for helping is the manner to go, giving any kind of advice for the manner to
handle issue must be filtered through lens of the way in which it would be affecting others
(Somachandra and Sylva, 2018). For instance- in case there is some issue with the employees for
getting to work at time, managers can install policies that could change time report of the
workers, but if they are seen as careful, it might have detrimental effect on the other workers and
even the clients.
Considering the regulations in another industry- Leaders should take measures for
handling particular issues that might have come on their way. It may found as helpful in taking
over a look at mistakes a leaders firm and other companies that have made and learn from it.
Deciding on the decision- After consulting with others, doing extra research work, it’s
time for the final decision as choice would likely affect many so it seems as the good idea in
creating a proposal regarding what issue is and the way in which leaders plan for work with
team in solving it. For the widespread of ethical issues which have became as problem within a
workplace, it is considered as the good practice for bringing decisions to team at a large.
Evaluating and implementing- In this talks meets or converted into an action where it
become easy for the people to create and research for the solutions to problem but when dealing

with ethics and the morality, it could be challenging for putting it into the action. Evaluation
allows everyone in seeing the manner in which an approach is working out and if there is some
unintended conditions which leaders do not foresee.
6.0 Conclusion
From above report it has been concluded that conducting the business ethically
encourages employees in engaging in right activities and performing the task ethically. Leaders
must follow appropriate steps and procedure for taking ethical decisions suitably and executing
such decision into the business at the time of charging for services.
7.0 Recommendations
 The first step that the company should for running the business ethically is that it should
develop the ethical standards.
 Company should ensure the leaders in exhibiting the proper behavior that often trickles
down from top to the bottom within an enterprise. Therefore, it is crucial that the leaders
should act virtuously and in serving as an example for rest of their staff.

REFERENCES
Books and journal
Brandweiner, R. and Morey, S., 2017. Implementing ethical culture across the Australian
financial landscape. Journal of Financial Compliance. 1(1). pp.56-63.
Cull, M. and Melville, B., 2018. A review of ethics education in financial planning courses in
Australia. Financial Planning Research Journal. 4(1). pp.11-32.
Kia, N., Halvorsen, B. and Bartram, T., 2019. Ethical leadership and employee in-role
performance. Personnel Review.
Somachandra, V. and Sylva, K., 2018. “Ethical management practice” as a csr tool to ensure the
corporate sustainability of construction industry: a conceptual review.
Steen, A., McGrath, D. and Wong, A., 2016. Market failure, regulation and education of
financial advisors. Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal. 10(1). pp.3-
17.
Underhill, E. and et.al., 2018. Migration intermediaries and codes of conduct: Temporary
migrant workers in Australian horticulture. Journal of Business Ethics. 153(3). pp.675-
689.