Imagine that your business appears on a consumer warning page published by ASIC. The page tells consumers to exercise “additional caution”. It sits within a regulatory campaign prompted by concerns that Australians are being pressured into switching their superannuation and exposed to significant losses. ASIC announces your inclusion in a media release and says it is putting industry participants “on notice”.
But ASIC also says that naming your business should not be understood as indicating that any law has been broken, or even as reflecting upon you.
What, then, is the public supposed to make of your name being on this list?
That is the unresolved contradiction at the centre of ASIC’s list of businesses involved in superannuation lead generation.
The List
ASIC began publishing ‘the list’ in February 2026 as part of a review of advice licensees using lead-generation services. It initially named 44 entities and added another 19 in June.
The list includes lead generators and referral partners, as well as advice licensees, corporate authorised representatives and financial advisers that have acquired leads since 1 July 2024.
ASIC says some lead-generation practices may expose consumers to significant losses. Its accompanying warnings refer to high-pressure tactics, “free” superannuation health checks, claims that existing funds are underperforming, limited contact with an adviser, poor product disclosure and promises of unrealistic returns.
There’s no question ASIC has every reason to examine the sector, particularly as lead generators were part of the machinery through which thousands of consumers were funnelled into the failed Shield and First Guardian funds.
Publishing the list is said to improve transparency, help consumers make informed decisions and assist superannuation trustees to identify high-risk switching activity.
Then comes the disclaimer:
“The naming of the entities in this list should not be construed as an indication by ASIC that a contravention of the law has occurred, nor should it be considered a reflection upon any person or entity.”
The first part is straightforward. A review is not an investigation, and an investigation is not a finding. ASIC should not imply that a business has contravened the law when it has made no such determination.
The second part is more difficult. Publication on this particular list inevitably reflects upon those named. That’s its purpose.
A warning without an accusation
There is nothing inherently unlawful or improper about generating a lead. Most businesses advertise and many buy introductions or receive referrals. Financial advisers are no exception.
“Lead generator” is now increasingly being used as though it describes the misconduct rather than the means by which a prospective client was identified. The relevant issue is not whether a lead was generated, but how it was generated, what representations were made to secure the lead, whether an unlicensed person strayed into financial product advice, how the adviser dealt with the client and whether commercial incentives distorted the outcome.
Treating the label itself as the conclusion may be politically convenient, but it tells consumers remarkably little about the risk presented by any particular business.
There is ample evidence of lead-generation models that deserve regulatory attention. Investigations reported by Professional Planner have identified pressure tactics, misleading comparisons, apparent imitation of superannuation fund branding, a representative who could not be found on ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register, an AI-generated image used to suggest a physical office and advice fees approaching $14,000.
None of that conduct warrants a defence. It does, however, illustrate why ASIC should distinguish businesses exhibiting those features from businesses named merely because they generated, referred or acquired a lead.
Yet the criterion for appearing on ASIC’s list is expressed much more broadly. A licensee or adviser may be named simply because it acquired leads. The list does not tell a consumer whether the arrangement exhibited any of the high-risk features identified by ASIC. It does not distinguish an entity under active investigation from one identified only because it participated in an otherwise lawful marketing arrangement.
Nor does it explain what ASIC has examined in relation to each entity.
That leaves the disclaimer doing a lot of work it cannot do.
ASIC places the list on a consumer-protection page, surrounds it with warnings about harmful conduct and tells consumers to exercise additional caution where a business uses lead generation and exhibits the identified high-risk features. But the list does not tell consumers which, if any, of those features ASIC has observed in relation to each business named. It nevertheless asks readers not to treat inclusion as reflecting upon those named.
Both messages cannot operate at full strength. If inclusion means nothing adverse, the list provides consumers with little useful information. If inclusion is intended to alter consumer behaviour, it necessarily carries an adverse implication.
Regulation by reputational effect
Naming a business can alert consumers, cause trustees or licensees to reconsider relationships and prompt the business to change its conduct. It may disrupt a harmful model far more quickly than litigation and when a person’s lifesavings are on the line, delay can be ruinous.
There is a legitimate public interest in ASIC acting before another interconnected sales, advice and product-distribution chain causes losses on the scale of Shield or First Guardian.
But that speed and effectiveness come at a cost. A formal enforcement process comes with particulars, evidence and avenues of review. A public list can impose consequences without any equivalent process. Commercial counterparties rarely parse legal disclaimers with the care of a court. A business may be judged not for what ASIC has found, but for the company it keeps on the page.
That does not mean ASIC must wait until it can prove a contravention before saying anything. It means the information published should be sufficiently precise to let the reader understand what is known and what is not.
Transparency requires more than names
If the object is transparency, a bare list is an unusually opaque way to achieve it.
ASIC could state the objective criterion that caused each category of entity to be included and distinguish between lead generation, referral activity and the mere acquisition of a lead.
It could say whether ASIC has observed any of its identified high-risk features in relation to a particular entity, without asserting a contravention. It could also disclose when the activity was last identified and provide a process for correcting inaccurate or outdated information.
ASIC already acknowledges that some entities may have ceased the activity and that names or contact details may have changed. But it does not explain whether or when a business can come off the list. That matters if the list is to remain available indefinitely while the underlying information becomes progressively less current.
There should also be a clear means by which a named party can respond – not because ASIC needs permission to publish accurate information, but because procedural fairness improves the accuracy and legitimacy of regulatory action.
Ultimately, ASIC should decide what it intends the list to communicate.
If it is merely a neutral map of a market under review, it should not be framed as a consumer warning. If it is a risk-based warning, ASIC should identify the risk associated with inclusion rather than simultaneously creating and disclaiming an inference.
From information to suspicion
It would be easy to reduce this issue to the reputational sensitivities of businesses involved in lead generation, but that would miss the larger point.
Consumers are not protected by information that is deliberately ambiguous. Telling them to be cautious without explaining why does not support informed decision-making. It casts a slur without identifying the conduct said to justify it.
ASIC may be entirely justified in publishing what it knows about the lead-generation market. But once the regulator deliberately attaches a business’s name to a warning, it cannot plausibly maintain that doing so carries no reflection upon that business.
Scott Barlow is an independent financial services regulatory compliance consultant.
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