Senate Committee expected to report on ASIC/COMMFP

Senior executives within both the Commonwealth Bank and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will be bracing themselves for the expected release today of the Senate Committee Inquiry into the performance of ASIC. 

The Commonwealth Bank will be closely reading the Committee’s final report to determine whether it will have to dig deeper in terms of compensating clients impacted by the actions of now-banned Commonwealth Financial Planning (CommFP) advisers, while ASIC will be worried about the committee’s assessment of its general performance and its handling of the CommFP issue in particular. 

The committee handed down an interim report in late May and signalled it was extending its inquiry because, in mid-May, ASIC and the Commonwealth bank had advised that there had been inconsistences in the way in which the compensation arrangements for Comm FP clients had been applied.  

ASIC chairman, Greg Medcraft later apologised to the committee for the regulator having provided misleading information, however a supplementary submission by the Commonwealth Bank, details of which were released last week, suggested the regulator had always been made fully aware of the evolving compensation arrangements process. 

The Senate Committee’s final report is widely expected to recommend substantial improvements in ASIC’s operational procedures with respect to proactively oversighting the financial services industry, together with measures to better protect industry whistle-blowers.