Advice, super sector faces ASIC levies
The financial advice sector will face a fixed levy of $1,500 under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) cost recovery framework released today, while superannuation trustees will face a “graduated component” of the levy, based on the total value of assets as at 30 June.
The corporate regulatory released the framework to update the industry on the nature of the levies since the Government released its proposals paper, ‘Proposed Industry Funding Model for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’ in November 2016.
As part of the framework, financial advice licensees authorised to provide advice on relevant products to retail clients would have to pay the fixed levy.
“The graduated levy for these licensees is based on the number of advisers on the Financial Adviser Register,” ASIC said in a statement.
However, for security dealers, large securities exchange participants and large futures exchange participants, the graduated component would exclude advisers who only provided advice on quoted products, products traded on a foreign financial market or basic banking products.
For superannuation trustees, the metric used would be the total value of assets as at 30 June in registrable superannuation entities, adjusted to exclude assets that were an interest in another registrable superannuation entity operated by the trustee.
Under this structure, the minimum levy they would face would be $18,000 while the threshold for the graduated levy would be $250 million.
For responsible entities, the graduated component of the levy would be based on the total value of assets as at 30 June in registered schemes, excluding assets that were an interest in another registered scheme operated by the responsible entity.
They would face a minimum levy of $7,000, and a threshold for graduated levy of $10 million.
ASIC chairman, Greg Medcraft, said: “We are pleased to be able to confirm the framework to help industry prepare for this new regime and thank industry members for their contribution”.
“ASIC will continue to support industry to comply with their obligations as they become due. Further details will be provided in a Cost Recovery Implementation Statement later this year.”
ASIC also said the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) would continue to recover the costs of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal through the financial institutions supervisory levies until the 2020-21 financial year, just before tribunal would be scrapped.
AUTHOR
Malavika Santhebennur
Recommended for you
The FSCP has announced its latest verdict, suspending an adviser’s registration for failing to comply with his obligations when providing advice to three clients.
Having sold Madison to Infocus earlier this year, Clime has now set up a new financial advice licensee with eight advisers.
With licensees such as Insignia looking to AI for advice efficiencies, they are being urged to write clear AI policies as soon as possible to prevent a “Wild West” of providers being used by their practices.
Iress has revealed the number of clients per adviser that top advice firms serve, as well as how many client meetings they conduct each week.
