The corporate regulator is consulting on plans to publish two dashboards containing breach reporting and Internal Dispute Resolution data in the second half of the year that identifies licensees.
The ASIC paper said the published data will include firms’ names and licence numbers, but will not include the names, licence numbers or other data of licensees who are individuals.
The consultation paper confirms the regulator will publish IDR data for FY24 and FY25, as well as new breach reporting data and updates to previous submitted reports from FY25.
“The scope of reports included in publication will be limited to significant breaches and likely significant breaches of core obligations,” the paper said.
ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland said the publication of the dashboards would boost transparency, drive improved performance, and help deliver better consumer outcomes – the latter being one of ASIC’s key strategic priorities.
The publication of the data will encourage firms to “lift their game”, Kirkland said in a media release.
“It also provides consumers and investors access to this data at firm level, further encouraging confident and informed participation in the financial system.”
The regulator’s annual Insights from the reportable situations regime report – colloquially known as breach reporting – was first published in October 2022. Since its introduction, ASIC has been critical of under reporting of breaches from the industry, specifically smaller licensees.
The first report revealed 74 per cent of all reports were lodged by only 23 Australian financial services or credit licensees, which was underwhelming to the regulator.
The following year, the ratio stayed roughly the same, with 71 per cent of reports lodged by 21 licensees, most being on the larger side.
In November 2023, ASIC warned the number of licensees were not as high as expected and that it will be stepping up its surveillance and enforcement action until it was, foreshadowing this action.
The 2023 ASIC analysis suggested 10,000 AFSLs either found no breaches, found some but did not report or simply didn’t monitor at all.
Long foreshadowed
ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland told the Professional Planner Licensee Summit in 2024 that and said the previous two reports were not satisfactory.
“It’s now been in effect for almost three years but the proportion of licensees that have submitted a report is very low and that suggests that some may still not be complying with their obligations,” Kirkland said.
He added licensees should expect to see ASIC’s reporting of IDR data become more detailed over time. Smaller financial firms were required to submit IDR data for the first time since the report’s conception, which will increase the number of firms that submit reports to around 8700.
“This gives us for the first time a picture of how the full spectrum of firms are dealing with consumer and small business complaints under their IDR procedures,” Kirkland said.
“When we’re doing surveillance work, we’ll typically look to include a sample that includes a range of firm sizes, including relatively small firms.”
The third ASIC report, released October 2024, found larger licensees once again lodged a higher proportion of reports compared to smaller AFSLs, but there was an increased uptake compared to the previous two years.
