Regulation

The corporate regulator has delivered a stern warning to licensees with the release of its guide on consumer remediation. After overseeing billions in repayments to Australians, ASIC chair Karen Chester says the industry “must do better”

The inability of major casino operators – and many other ‘respected’ professions – to run a clean sheet is galling for an advice industry beset with stifling levels of regulation.

New income thresholds for seniors health cards, downsizer rules, the transfer balance cap, changing work test requirements and the Home Equity Access Scheme are the five most common technical problem areas for advisers in 2022.

Many have seen the value of their superannuation, property and share portfolios fall over the past six months, which has only highlighted the need for quality advice.

As romantic as it may be to proclaim the emergence of an advice profession and to suggest that a ‘good advice’ duty is a panacea for systemic failures, the retreat of institutional licensees from advice is not necessarily evidence of our capacity for self-regulation.

Advice is set for a dramatic shift towards deregulation, with the Levy proposal paper sketching a plan to ditch statements of advice and best interest duty in favour of a new “good advice” directive.

Funds have adapted to the test’s metrics, but the consequent risk aversion could put the industry in “limp mode” and curb performance.

The chair will take a hard line on DDO and crack down on scams, but his major concern is crypto misinformation. “My job is to be frank with the Australian people,” he said.

The new regime will help firms identify and act on breaches a lot quicker than before.

Once the advice review is completed, the minister has asked Treasury to look at updating the ethics code and assessing the viability of a shortened adviser exam.

The review will consider “the consequences of time lags between regulatory action and cost allocation”, the terms of reference states.

The global ETF and would-be superannuation fund provider believes a scaled compliance model would better serve the domestic advice market.