The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) CP 332 ‘Promoting access to affordable advice for consumers’ project has been put on hold as issues over funding the single disciplinary body (SDB) meant ASIC is unsure what it can commit to either project.
The project was announced last year and ASIC published feedback from the responses in July, which included criticisms statement of advice (SoA) preparation, rising regulatory costs and governance costs pushing up the cost of advice for consumers.
Coalition MP Bert van Manen of the Corporations and Financial Services committee asked ASIC Commissioner, Danielle Press, about where CP 332 was headed.
“There was a lack of detailed information about what direction that has now provided to ASIC,” van Manen said.
Press said it was currently with Treasury but that the project would be put on hold due to costing of the SDB.
“With respect to where the publication is at, we have provided all the information to Treasury now,” Press said.
“There review is coming through, so the submissions have been provided to Treasury; we had done a number of round tables.
“Out of that there has been some project work we have started or are scoping around how we can better engage with industry.
“However, some of that will now be put on hold due to the SDB and some of the issues with the costing to the industry.”
Press did not specify what parts of the CP 332 project would be on hold or would continue, but she said the SDB was a piece of work that would need to be undertaken once the legislation was fully formed and the cost of that would be funded from industry through the ASIC levy.
“If the levy is staying the same, there is work we need to do, by law, to the SDB that will need to be funded out of the envelope that we apply advisers,” Press said.
“If we are trying to keep that envelope unchanged then that means there are other pieces of work we cannot do.”
Press said she was unable to comment yet on what that SDB work would cost.
