As a “prudential regulator,” Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is concerned with maintaining the soundness of Australia’s financial institutions, so that the community can have confidence that those institutions will meet their financial commitments.

APRA oversees:

• authorised deposit-taking institutions (such as banks, building societies and credit unions)
• general insurers
• life insurers
• friendly societies
• private health insurers
• reinsurance companies, and
• superannuation funds (other than self-managed funds).

APRA is tasked with protecting the interests of depositors, policyholders and superannuation fund members. They promote financial system stability by working closely with the Australian Treasury, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

APRA also acts as a national statistical agency for the financial sector, collecting data both for its own uses and on behalf of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Financial institutions that are subject to APRA supervision have been licensed by APRA to be a deposit-taker, insurance provider or superannuation entity. Supervision by APRA involves:

• providing regular data to APRA;
• being visited by APRA to review the institution’s operations; and
• receiving APRA’s assessment of the institution’s operations, governance and risk management framework.

As the prudential regulator, APRA believes it has a clear duty to warn financial institutions of risks that could threaten the interests of Australia’s financial beneficiaries or the overall stability of the system.

They are seeking to create a level of resilience so the economy, and the financial institutions within in it, are well placed to withstand the challenges. Such challenges include the effects of climate change.

APRA also has been improving its understanding of how the transition to a low carbon economy may impact on individual entities, financial sectors and the broader economy.

Our core mission is to establish and enforce prudential standards and practices designed to ensure that, under all reasonable circumstances, financial promises made by institutions we supervise are met within a stable, efficient and competitive financial system.

We also act as the national statistical agency for the Australian financial sector and play a role in preserving the integrity of Australia’s retirement incomes policy.

The majority of APRA’s funding comes from two sources:

• The Financial Institutions Supervisory Levies, collected by APRA from the financial sector and used to fund elements of financial industry-related operations of APRA, ASIC, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) SuperStream and the Department of Human Services (DHS); and
• General Government funding.

Find out more – industry fees and levies and APRA Annual Report