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The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is set on using additional government funding to accelerate action in the financial advice space, including banning actions.
Last month, financial services minister Kelly O’Dwyer, and treasurer Scott Morrison, announced a $70.1 million fund injection to the corporate regulator to improve the monitoring of financial institutions’ governance and compliance.
Speaking before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services earlier this month, ASIC chairman James Shipton defended the use of enforceable undertakings but said the regulator will continue to use different tools, including banning actions, to achieve behavioural change in the financial advice space, Super Review reported.
“It’s the combination of different tools and responses that will achieve a behavioural change, which is essentially what we’re looking for in the financial advice space,” Shipton said. “There are a number of different initiatives taking place right now, including the important enforcement work which Ms Macaulay and others are undertaking.
“We have additional funding, as has been mentioned earlier. Part of that additional funding will include work to accelerate the enforcement actions, including banning actions, in the financial advice space. Also, which is important, we will be embarking upon extra supervisory work in the financial advice space. We are looking at the continued existence of conflicts of interest in the financial advice space. That particular response needs to be seen in the broader context, which is the utilisation of different tools at different times to achieve behavioural change.”
