ASIC urged to make affordable advice submissions public
The Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) came under intense pressure to make public the industry submissions around its code of conduct and now the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is being urged to make public the many submissions filed as part of its affordable advice review.
With Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commissioner, Danielle Press, having revealed that the regulator has received over 480 submissions as part of its review process, advisers have told Money Management that they believe those submissions should be made public before the regulator moves to produce its final report.
While ASIC has a strong track-record of making submissions to its inquiries public, it usually does so only after it has conducted its consultation processes and published the resultant report.
Calls for the earlier release of submissions have come amid financial adviser concern that ASIC is focussed on achieving the objective of more affordable advice via the use of limited advice and an extension of intra-fund advice.
Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) general manager, policy and professionalism, Phil Anderson, said that his organisation had filed its submission with ASIC and had read a number of other submissions and was looking forward to participating in the resultant consultative processes.
While calling for submissions late last year ASIC made clear that they represented only the first stage in process.
The regulator said it would be holding industry roundtables in the first quarter of this year to discuss the issues raised in the submissions.
However, advisers said that the roundtables were not always easily accessible and that making submissions would be useful in encouraging discussion amongst a wider range of participants.
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