On 26 June 2025, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) published the results of its latest stakeholder survey which took place over four weeks in February and March 2025.

Background

APRA has conducted biennial surveys of the entities that it regulates since 2009 and uses the feedback to understand the effectiveness and impact of its regulation, and the financial sector’s perceptions of its processes and communications. For the 2025 survey 377 entities were invited to participate and APRA received fully endorsed and submitted surveys from 262 entities, a response rate of 70 per cent.

Overall positive…with some caveats

Overall, the survey results are broadly steady and in line with 2023. If anything, there was a slight upwards tend overall.

The key result was that 97 per cent of survey respondents believe that APRA’s supervision benefits their industries.

Also, 95 per cent said that APRA’s supervision had a positive impact on their risk management practices.

That said, survey respondents were more mixed in relation to how APRA considered the cost and compliance burden of its regulatory requirements. 68 per cent believed APRA effectively pursued financial safety, balanced with considerations of efficiency, competition, contestability and competitive neutrality, and promotes financial stability.

Moreover, only 24 per cent of respondents said changes to APRA’s prudential framework sufficiently considered the costs of regulation imposed on industry.