Vulture City

The royal commission chaired by former High Court Judge Kenneth Hayne revealed multiple instances of white-collar crime, failures to meet community standards and breakdowns in governance within Australia’s top finance companies. Australians were gobsmacked at revelations that bankers, brokers and advisers in financial institutions in a country renowned for believing in a ‘fair go’ were dooming customers to a life of debt and misery while feathering their own nest.

Financial advisers and bankers climbed on the shoulders of children, the infirm, the indigenous, the financially illiterate and the gambling addicted and stepped on the dead in order to reach for the bags of money viewed as just reward for meeting performance measures set by the companies that are now facing billions of dollars of remediation payments to the customers their organisations stiffed.

Vulture City: How our bankers got rich on swindles takes a deep dive into a series of case studies from the transcripts, exhibits and reports of the Hayne Royal Commission. Investigative journalist Tom Ravlic casts his forensic eye over the financial wreckage and explains why some people choose to behave badly, enrich themselves and hurt others in the process.