ASIC

Financial planning

Market downturn could ‘burn’ first-time investors

While it is great to see retail investors investing in the stockmarket for the first time, a sharp market downturn could put them off the market for good, warns Airlie....

Policy & Regulation

Advice makes 20% of ASIC 1H enforcement outcomes

None of the outcomes resulted in criminal proceedings, and there is a similar percentage of ongoing cases by the corporate regulator....

Superannuation

CFSIL liable for misleading super members

The Federal Court has found that it made false or misleading representations to members to avoid them moving to the MySuper product....

Policy & Regulation

Bulk upload reports for breach reporting allowed

To reduce the reporting burden, the corporate regulator is allowing licensees to batch upload reports that derive from a single root cause as part of the new breach repor...

Policy & Regulation

Why penalties can’t fund the ASIC levy

If the corporate regulator had funds awarded by penalties put into the financial advice levy it could look like a new revenue stream aimed at players with deep pockets....

Financial planning

Advice industry moving into ‘financial aid’

The advice industry is turning into a structure where only the wealthy can afford advice and digital offerings will only create more corruption, according to a financial ...

Features

InFocus: Is TikTok advice any better than ‘the man down the pub’?

While finfluencers are on the rise and targeting younger investors, this presents an opportunity for advisers to help investors separate the information from the noise, w...

Policy & Regulation

DDO won’t absolve conflicts of interest

Product issuers and distributors need to be careful with what incentives apply to distributors who sell products to those target customers, according to EY....

Financial planning

Advice industry still owes ASIC $2.4m for FY2019-20

The corporate watchdog has said there was an outstanding amount of $2.4 million unpaid by the financial advice sector on its total regulatory cost of $59.59 million durin...

Superannuation

ASIC to go hard on super funds that overpromise

The corporate regulator will act if it sees false, misleading or deceptive conduct in member disclosures of all super funds – not just those that failed the performance t...

Financial planning

AFSLs paying finfluencers questioned by ASIC

The corporate regulator is reviewing select finfluencers to understand their business models and how the financial services laws apply to their activity....

Superannuation

Poor-performing untested super funds a risk to poach failed MySuper members

The corporate regulator intends to monitor members from underperforming super funds from being swayed into an untested fund that is in reality performing worse, however i...

Financial planning

Only 60% pass July FASEA exam

This is the lowest pass rate, beating the previous record of 67%, with only two exam sittings remaining this year....

Policy & Regulation

Has successful litigation been enough to cover ASIC levy difference?

Successful litigation against NAB, Westpac and Dixon Advisory could add enough to the corporate regulators coffers to cover the difference from the reduced levy....

Policy & Regulation

Advice levy revenue almost increased 179% in three years

Without the Government’s intervention, levies on financial advice would have increased from $25.6 million in 2017-18 to an estimated $71.4 million in 2020-21....