Australia calls for stronger AI risk controls at financial firms

Australia’s prudential regulator APRA warned on April 30, 2026 that many financial firms lack the technical expertise to manage AI-related risks and called for an overhaul of AI risk procedures. Citing last year’s supervisory review, APRA flagged frontier models such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos as raising the “probability, speed and scale” of cyber attacks. The regulator is finalising a forward plan to supervise AI risks and said it may consider further policy action. For the Australia 200 index, heightened scrutiny and potential new rules could raise compliance costs and regulatory uncertainty for banks and insurers, increasing sector-specific volatility and weighing on financials within the index until frameworks are clearer.