ASIC Chair Joe Longo released ASIC’s 2022 Corporate Plan on 22 August. The Plan continues ASIC’s practice of revising and reissuing its 4-year corporate plan every year. This year, ASIC’s four main external priorities have changed significantly.
Financial product design and distribution for consumers, and technology risks including cyber-security risks continue to feature as two of ASIC’s main priorities.
Sustainable finance and retirement decision making have been included in ASIC’s main priorities, replacing “promoting economic recovery” and “driving industry readiness for and compliance with law reform” (although readiness for the Financial Accountability Regime remains a strategic project).
These changes are welcome, and reflect ASIC’s new-found agility and willingness to respond to current issues and market forces in the governance, securities and investments sectors. In particular, new strategic projects focused on regulatory engagement in relation to crypto assets, a global challenge for all regulators in this space, are critical. These projects go hand-in-hand with ASIC’s continuing good work on detecting and warning companies and consumers about online scams and cyber-security threats.
ASIC has also rejigged its internal priorities, with a clear determination to further invest in digital technology and its data and analytical capabilities “to be a leading digitally enabled and data-informed regulator”. ASIC will also prioritise people and resourcing and modernising business registers, all with a view to operating more efficiently.
Deeper into the Plan are a few further strategic priorities of note, including the following:
- High-risk property schemes - that expose investors to significant losses.
- Indigenous financial services framework, to achieve positive financial outcomes for indigenous peoples.
- Review of whistle-blower programmes.
- Superannuation projects, including trustee transparency and communication of performance test failures.
- Financial adviser exams and registration.
- Predatory lending practices.
- ASX CHESS replacement project.
- Marketing and distribution practices of securities market intermediaries.
- Developing various technology tools to identify and assess poor market disclosure practices by listed entities.
The Plan also contains a section setting out how ASIC measures and evaluates its performance. However, the Plan does not include an assessment of how ASIC has performed in achieving the strategic priorities set out in previous plans. There is a summary report on performance against strategic objectives in ASIC’s annual report, but a focused assessment would be a welcome addition to next year’s Plan.
