Australia & NZ

Under the new enforcement approach, APRA will be more willing to use its full range of powers to deter bad practices and hold entities and individuals to account.

The A$3mn compensation programme follows an ASIC investigation which found that 114 retail investors lost money from investing in complex products based on improper advice.

CBA has offered A$9.3mn to compensate customers whose advice was reviewed under the 2014 licence conditions imposed on its financial planning entities.

The ACCC and Australian police have brought charges against an alleged price-fixing cartel, which is said to have been directed by Vietnam's Sacombank.

OTC derivatives platforms offering services to foreign retail investors may be breaking overseas laws, which may be inconsistent with local obligations to provide services ‘efficiently, honestly and fairly’.

NZX participants will no longer be required to maintain a reasonable belief that clients are non-US domiciled persons in order to trade on their behalf.

New Zealand has passed new legislation enabling a new framework for regulating financial advice. The new regime will come into effect in the first half of 2020.

A new law has made it mandatory for all financial firms to fully cooperate with AFCA to resolve consumer and small business disputes.

The RBA and Australian Payments Council have issued a consultation to help the industry agree on key strategic decisions for migrating the payment system to ISO 20022 by end-2024.

The FCA and ASIC have signed MoUs on trade repositories and alternative investment funds, and adopted existing equivalence decisions on their supervisory and regulatory regimes.