ASIC hits AMP and banks over laggard approach to fee for no service
AMP and the major banks have taken to long to conduct follow-up reviews into fee for no service, according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The regulator has released an update on what were supposed to be further reviews undertaken by AMP, ANZ, the Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank (NAB) and Westpac claiming that most of the institutions are yet to complete the exercise beyond what was carried out in 2013.
Commenting on the finding, ASIC Commissioner, Danielle Press said the institutions had taken too long to conduct the reviews and welcomed the Government’s commitment to give ASIC new directions powers that could speed up remediation programs in the future.
“These reviews have been unreasonably delayed,” she said. “ASIC acknowledges that they are large scale reviews – they relate to systemic failures over long periods with reviews going back six to 10 years and cover 36 licensees from the six institutions that currently authorise more than 7,000 advisers. However, we believe the institutions have failed to sufficiently prioritise and resource their reviews, particularly as ASIC advised them to commence the reviews in mid-2015 or early 2016.”
“We are pleased the Government has agreed to adopt recommendations from the 2017 ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforce Report, which includes a directions power. This would allow ASIC to direct AFS licensees to establish suitable customer review and compensation programs,” she said.
Press said the main reasons given by the institutions for the delays were poor record keeping, a failure to propose reasonable customer-centric methodologies and an overly legalistic approach.
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