Former prime minister Tony Abbott says Australia's corporate regulators should be sacked and replaced with "more vigilant" people after a string of damning revelations from the banking royal commission.

Mr Abbott's hardline reaction comes amid growing calls for compensation for victims of bank misconduct and after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull conceded the government could have avoided "political grief" it had established the royal commission sooner.

The former Liberal leader has become the latest critic to turn up the heat on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which has faced questions over an apparent failure to detect and punish the conduct now being exposed by Kenneth Hayne's inquiry.

"What were the regulators doing to allow all this to be happening? And that's the thing that keeps occurring to me every time I read fresh revelations." Mr Abbott told 2GB radio on Monday.