The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) regulatory guidance on the impact of the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms on financial advisers and other industry participants will be released in time for a 1 July 2012 implementation date.
This will depend on the timing of the various FOFA bills passing through parliament, the regulator said.
The guidance will cover best interests duty, scaled advice, conflicted remuneration and new ASIC powers.
The regulator said it is also considering developing regulatory guidance on FOFA’s anti-avoidance provisions and will also amend existing regulatory guidance and ASIC relief to reflect the FOFA reforms where necessary.
"These consequential amendments to existing regulatory guidance may not all occur before 1 July 2012," ASIC stated.
ASIC said it will consult directly with stakeholders in the coming months as well as seeking industry feedback through its usual formal consultation process, and adopt a "facilitative compliance approach" for the first 12 months of the implementation of the FOFA reforms.
ASIC said that means if industry participants are making "reasonable efforts" to comply with the reforms, it will adopt a measured approach where inadvertent breaches result from a misunderstanding of requirements or systems issues. Deliberate and systemic breaches would result in stronger action, ASIC said.
