The Federal Government is set to grant the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) its wish of moving to a user-pays funding regime in next Tuesday’s Federal Budget.
Money Management has been told that the Government will use the Budget to start the processes necessary for the financial services regulator to move to the user-pays regime.
The move will be consistent both the lobbying efforts of members of the ASIC senior executive including its chairman, Greg Medcraft, and the recommendations of a both the Financial System Inquiry (FSI) and a recent Parliamentary Committee.
In a range of submissions to both the FSI and other inquiry processes, ASIC has provided substantial evidence of the value of “recovering the cost of using ASIC’s resources through an outcomes focused user-pays funding model”.
The regulator has claimed such a move is capable of driving economic efficiencies, will encourage self-regulation, limit overuse of ASIC’s resources, create greater visibility and cost accountability for ASIC, foster opportunities to better target regulatory outcomes and strengthen ASIC’s operational independence.
