The Productivity Commission Draft Report into the Efficiency and Competitiveness of Australia’s superannuation system, weighing in at a substantial 549 pages, contains a treasure trove of information on, and analysis of, a wide range of aspects of the industry.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has released its highly anticipated consultation paper on licensing relief for foreign financial services providers. The said new licensing regime will be broadly in line with that applied to other AFS licensees, but with relief from some provisions of the Australian Corporations Act and the imposition of certain additional tailored licence conditions. Partner Penny Nikoloudis, Senior Associate Jo Ottaway and Law Graduate Tom Lawson report.

The 2018-19 Federal Budget has introduced a number of proposed superannuation-related changes, with a focus on protecting small balances, young members and existing retirees.

The new Australian Financial Complaints Authority is to replace each of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Credit and Investments Ombudsman in November 2018.

The level of competition in both the electricity and financial services sectors has been closely scrutinised by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Productivity Commission. While there are fundamental differences in market structures in both sectors, the respective commissions have identified common concerns and made common proposals to address those concerns.

The list of alleged breaches are divided into breaches of the SIS Act, the Corporations Act and the ASIC Act we consider each of these and what it might mean.

Many of you will be familiar with the long and tortured history of fees and costs disclosure regulation in Australia. The most recent set of issues can be traced back to 2014, when ASIC tried to address what it considered to be gaps in and inconsistent application of the former regime.

The revised exposure draft Bill concerning design and distribution obligations for issuers and distributors of financial products, and new intervention powers for ASIC, includes some modest, yet mostly welcome, changes to the December 2017 exposure draft. Senior Regulatory Counsel Michael Mathieson reports.

The Government has slowly been changing the superannuation retirement income system, with the aim of increasing the range of retirement products available to Australians. A number of changes have already been implemented, and more are to come with the proposed ‘Comprehensive Income Products for Retirement’ (CIPRs) regime. We thought it was a good time to take stock and look ahead.

The third round of the Royal Commission’s hearings concerned lending practices to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The hearings considered a range of case studies.

The Federal Government has released exposure draft legislation for public consultation that, if enacted, will implement many of the recommendations of the ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforce to strengthen the penalty regime for corporate and financial sector misconduct. Partner Simun Soljo and Lawyer Roseanna Bricknell take a look at the proposed laws.

Avid, or even occasional, readers of Unravelled over the past few years cannot have failed to notice the Federal Government’s proposal to introduce two new forms of collective investment vehicle – each a shiny, tax-neutral alternative to the unit trust which (and note the heavy dose of self-interest here) will hopefully lead to a marked reduction in the sleepless nights and migraines resulting from the task of explaining the finer points of trust law to overseas counterparties and their advisers.

ASIC has recently announced a new supervisory approach that involves embedding ASIC officers in the four major banks and AMP. The initial media reporting on this approach suggested that it would involve embedding ‘teams of up to 20 agents for weeks at a time to sit with bank staff, drop into meetings and trail the CEO, executives and directors to identify misconduct before it arises.’

In examining the topic of consumer lending, the Commission considered issues arising from the sale of credit products – including residential mortgages, car finance and credit cards – by reference to case studies involving the four major banks as well as Aussie Home Loans and Citi.