What can we expect in the final report of the banking royal commission, to be handed to the Governor-General this Friday?

Commissioner Kenneth Hayne is sure to provide a few surprises given the breadth of topics he traversed, from consumer finance (loans, credit cards) to superannuation, insurance, regulation and financial planning.

The commission travelled around the country and even beyond the realm of the living — you might recall that the Commonwealth Bank, and others, charged dead people money for "personal advice".

Having sat in on the inquiry since its first hearing almost a year ago, read the exhaustive interim report and picked up hints dropped along the way, there are some key questions the final report must answer.

Will anyone go to jail?

We heard evidence about billions of dollars ripped from customers, the outrageous deceptions of regulators and conscious decisions to put the interests of institutions ahead of their clients.

But will anyone end up behind bars for it?

The royal commission is an inquiry, not an inquisition.

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It can't press charges itself, nor "fix or award compensation", nor even "make orders requiring a party to a dispute to take or not take any action". Decoded, that means they weren't set up to fix existing problems, more to prevent those problems recurring.

But it can make recommendations to the Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. From there it's up to them.

The interim report covered the first four of seven sessions of public hearings and was delivered at the end of September. More than 35 pages detailed conduct that the institutions themselves acknowledged.

This was backed up with evidence from regulators, experts and customers. Much of that conduct was actionable, meaning it could be taken further as a breach of the law, even if the institutions have paid back the money they took from customers.

Other jurisdictions and institutions may take cues from the final report. This has already happened with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

Chastened by criticism in the interim report that it is a court-shy watchdog — and shocked by new revelations in matters it thought it had sorted out — it has taken action against superannuation giant IOOF and is trying to disqualify its top executives from managing people's retirement savings.

What happens when customer and bank interests conflict?

There were countless instances where the interests of customers came come into conflict with those of institutions. Consistently through the year, Mr Hayne asked blisteringly clear questions that demonstrated he'd like to see greater transparency in these kinds of situations.

Mortgage brokers help write half the home loans in Australia, acting as a go-between for lenders and customers. But do they always work in your best interests, particularly as their pay varies depending on different loans from various lenders? Expect the relationships to be clarified, and most likely to replaced with a clear and up-front fee.

Vertical integration is under threat. When you bank with a "one-stop shop" like AMP — offering loans, super, insurance and more — do the potential efficiencies for customers outweigh the clear incentive to promote in-house products, even when they might not be in your best interests? Any substantial changes to that model would be a hammer blow to the beleaguered company.

Financial planning was also targeted in the interim report: "It is in the client's interests to obtain the best product", usually the cheapest and best-performing one.

But hold on, for planners, "the adviser's interest is to further his or her career and to maximise financial reward and the licensee's interest is to maximise profit". Those things don't work together. There are huge implications if the commissioner decides to dip his toe in the waters of financial planning, and it's been very warm all summer long.

Who watches over the watchdogs?

There are three key regulators in Australia's financial system.

Discount the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which is largely concerned with regulating and championing competition in the sector, and that leaves the corporate, markets and financial services regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and APRA, which supervises the stability of the financial system.

The evidence presented at the royal commission and summarised in the interim report didn't have kind things to say about either.

On ASIC: "When banks have disclosed, or ASIC has otherwise learned of, misconduct, ASIC has almost always sought to negotiate what will be done in response … Rarely has ASIC gone to court to have the defaulting party penalised."

APRA's job is to promote a stable and safe financial system. So it has to balance things like "financial safety and efficiency" with the need to keep the system ticking over.

As the report noted: "Understood in that light, APRA's lack of action in response to the widespread occurrence of the conduct described in this report may, perhaps, be more readily understood." But it still got a spanking for its inaction, particularly in relation to the big banks.

So who watches the watchdogs? A new body overseeing the two key financial regulators may be a recommendation from Mr Hayne.

The Financial System Inquiry in 2014 recommended an assessment board for continuous oversight of the financial regulators.

That report found potential benefits would include better accountability, improvements in the culture of regulators and the prevention of "regulatory capture", where watchdogs are too close to the organisations they're meant to regulate.

As the commissioner himself asked: "Should there be annual reviews of the regulators' performance against their mandates?" Expect the answer to be yes.

All last year the commission exposed appalling behaviour and clear, repeated breaches of the law.

By early February, as a federal election campaign ramps up, we'll know exactly what Commissioner Hayne thinks about it all. The questions will be answered. Then it will be up to prosecutors, governments, opposition parties and consumers to take that knowledge and do something with it.

Banking Royal Commission, a 30-minute documentary about the inquiry, airs on the ABC NEWS channel at 6:30pm (AEDT) tonight. It will be repeated at 5:30am and 9:30pm, Monday January 28 and will be available on iView.