Australia’s banks face unprecedented wave of threats, RBA warns

A rush on withdrawals among the possible dangers as sector likely to see risks with ‘a different complexion’ in coming decade, assistant governor says

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Australia’s banking industry faces emerging threats from potential rapid-fire bank runs to climate change and geopolitical tensions that are without historical precedents, a senior Reserve Bank official has warned.

Brad Jones, an assistant RBA governor, told a Sydney conference on Tuesday that “the emerging risks we are likely to confront over the next decade have a different complexion to those of recent decades” and that what passes for resilience today will likely need to evolve over time.

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