ASIC issues licensing warning on MDAs
Managed Discretionary Account (MDA) providers are facing Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) checks to ensure they are appropriately licensed following the regulator’s confirmation that they must now be specifically licensed.
ASIC confirmed on Monday that all MDA providers must now have an Australian financial services (AFS) licence, with an MDA-specific ‘dealing by issue’ licence authorisation.
It said that as of Monday, MDA providers who did not have the required AFS licence authorisations had to cease providing MDAs until they had obtained those authorisations.
ASIC said it had given notice of the revised AFS licence requirements in September 2016 and that, since then, 59 AFS licensees had applied for authorisation to operate as an MDA provider to transition and there were 244 licensees who had an MDA specific ‘dealing by issue’ authorisation.
The ASIC announcement said the regulator would be undertaking reviews to check that MDA providers held the relevant AFS licence authorisations and would take action if unlicensed activity was identified.
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