This blog provides practical updates about laws relating to:
- Australian Financial Services Licensing (AFSL)
- Australian Credit Licensing (ACL)
- Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF).
If you're in financial services and want short, crisp, free updates, then subscribe now (on the right of the screen).
The authors of this blog are lawyers of
Holley Nethercote Commercial & Financial Services Lawyers Melbourne.
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27 January 2012
Want to use ASIC’s Report 251 Review of financial advice industry practice to improve compliance and help manage risk? Use our Mindmap to identify key ASIC recommendations quickly and easily.
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23 December 2011
We’re in for some changes to the Australian Consumer Law that will be coming in on 1 January 2012. They concern the wording in warranties against defects given to consumers. Consumers include purchasers of products for personal, domestic or household use, or where the value of the good sold is $40,000 or less.
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7 December 2011
As promised in one of our previous blog posts, we have looked at the remaining FOFA reforms and have produced a Mindmap outlining five areas of relevance: Conflicts of Interest, Best Interests Obligations, Volume-based Shelf-space Fees, Asset-based Fees and, Remuneration and Benefits.
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7 December 2011
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has updated its guidance for issuers of disclosure documents including PDSs.
ASIC has reviewed and released a new draft of Regulatory Guides 55, 65 and 97. Although the changes to these Regulatory Guides do not contain considerable changes to policy, issuers of standard margin lending facilities, simple managed investment schemes and superannuation products are affected. These new versions of the Regulatory Guides were issued in November 2011, and include:
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30 November 2011
Are you a Responsible Entity (RE) of a managed investment scheme? Be-ware, ASIC has updated your financial requirements regarding NTA, liquidity and cash flow projections.
ASIC has released a new Class Order (CO11/1140) and re-released a draft of RG166 & PF 209 outlining changes to financial requirements that will apply from 1 November 2012.
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24 November 2011
Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) Update – the plot thickens.
On 24 November the Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten unveiled further FOFA reforms, introducing them into the House of Representatives.
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17 November 2011
Exposure draft Bills for FOFA Tranches 1 and 2 were released in late August and September respectively but only part of Tranche 1 has found its way into a Bill which has been introduced into Parliament.
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4 November 2011
There has been some movement regarding the Bill to implement a segment of FOFA Tranche 1 (see Mindmap here) that was introduced into the House of Representatives on 13 October 2011.
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30 September 2011
Tranche 2 of the FOFA Reforms has now been released. We’ve done the hard yards for you and summarised it in to a one page Mindmap. This Bill isn’t quite as detailed as the first Tranche that came out in August, but there’s still a bit to get your head around.
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2 September 2011
We’re not kidding. It’s detailed, and you’ll need to print it out on A3, but we have summarised the structure of the new FOFA Exposure Draft that will amend the Corporations Act 2001, so that you can print it out and stick it up on your wall. Or, you can pass it on to a colleague. This replaces our last Mindmap released earlier in the week. Please comment on the blog if you have questions – we’re thinking of running some FOFA training in the near future.