AFA News 1 April 2021. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services is responsible for the oversight of ASIC.  The PJC held their most recent hearing with ASIC on 19 March 2021.  This was the first hearing under the new PJC Chair, Andrew Wallace, who is the LNP Member for the Sunshine Coast seat of Fisher.

We have recently met with Mr Wallace and know that he is in regular contact with financial advisers from within his electorate.  Mr Wallace asked a number of important questions, including a detailed question on Fee Disclosure Statements and getting to the bottom of the fundamental difference between how Fee Disclosure Statements are produced by financial planning systems and what ASIC expects.  This question got to the core of the issue with timing differences, GST/RITC issues, and small differences.  ASIC openly acknowledged that this was a legislative problem and that they will be talking to Treasury about how this problem can be fixed.  We have been calling on the Government to fix this issue for over a year.

Andrew Wallace and Bert van Manen also asked questions about the rising cost of financial advice and what ASIC are doing to reduce the cost of advice and to rationalise the documentation that is required to provide financial advice.  ASIC spoke to the work that they are doing and committed to making a number of changes over the next year or two to improve the way they communicate the requirements for providing compliant financial advice.

Parliamentary hearings are an important part of the Governance process with respect to the oversight of ASIC and Government agencies.  We pay close attention to these hearings in order to understand the key issues and to ensure that we are across the emerging issues.

To watch a short video of the PJC questions discussed above, please click here.

Issued 01.04.2021. AFA Policy & Education Update