The Treasury has released a paper on changes to the AFS self-reporting regime for comment. The closing date for submissions is Friday, 12 May 2017.
The self-reporting regime for Australian Financial Services licensees (AFS licensees) has come under scrutiny over the last decade or so in the media and in a series of inquiries into banking or banking and financial services related misconduct. Concurrently, ASIC has publicly outlined concerns with the effectiveness of some aspects of the existing regime.
The Taskforce has conducted preliminary analysis of these issues, with the benefit of ongoing targeted consultation with industry and other stakeholders. This has enabled the Taskforce to develop preliminary positions on a set of reforms aimed at enhancing the current regime and making it more effective.
The paper poses reforms that would:
- clarify when the reporting obligation is triggered – reducing compliance costs and delays in reporting, and removing uncertainty about when and whether a reporting obligation exists in the circumstances;
- increase accountability for licensees, and their employees and representatives by expanding the class of reports that must be made to expressly include misconduct by individual advisers and employees;
- introduce new and heightened penalties for non-reporting, giving ASIC greater flexibility to impose a range of penalties in response to a failure to report;
- require ASIC to publish data on breach reports for major licensees; and
- introduce an equivalent reporting regime for credit licensees (who are currently subject only to annual compliance reporting).
The taskforce invites all interested parties to make a submission on the positions outlined in this paper.
