Commonwealth FP clears EU obligation to ASIC

Commonwealth Financial Planning is now regarded as having complied with the enforceable undertaking entered into with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) around fee for no service.

The regulator announced today that the business was now regarded as compliant with respect to the EU and that on 30 May, it had received an attestation from Commonwealth Financial Planning signed by Angus Sullivan, Group Executive Retail Banking Services and a final independent expert report from Ernst and Young.

The announcement said ASIC was satisfied with the attestation and the final independent expert report and that compliance with the EU was not finalised, save for payment of some remaining refunds to clients which is to be done by 30 Setember.

It said that CFPL has attested to the following matters as required under the EU:

1. the material changes to CFPL’s systems, controls and processes that have been implemented in response to the fees for no service conduct;
2. that CFPL has taken reasonable steps to identify and remediate customers to whom CFPL did not provide annual reviews in the period from July 2015 to January 2018, on the basis that payment of additional refunds will be complete by the end of August 2019; and
3. that CFPL’s systems, processes and controls are now reasonably adequate totrack and discharge CFPL’s contractual obligations to its ongoing service customers.

In January 2019, CFPL was required under the EU to immediately take all necessary steps to stop charging or receiving ongoing service fees, and not enter into any new ongoing service arrangements with customers.