The Australian financial services industry needs to address a range of tax, regulatory and infrastructure reform issues to support local investors and maximise Australia’s opportunities on the world stage, according to the chair of the Australian Custodial Services Association, Bryan Gray.
Gray told the organisation’s annual conference in Sydney today that despite being the fourth largest investment market in the world, Australia was still too reliant on old-fashioned faxing and manual processing.
“If we could improve the efficiency of our underlying financial infrastructure, as well as abolish some unappealing taxes, Australian companies and investment funds would attract a lot more investors from offshore,” he said.
Gray said that customers were an integral part of Australia’s investment industry infrastructure but despite the pace of change in Australia, the global investment community continued to move faster.
“We need to ensure our somewhat insulated market is able to support the massive ongoing growth in funds, increasing cross-border activity, and relentless rise in investment complexity that we foresee over the coming decades,” he said.
