Australia

Securities / Derivatives

FMA Blocks CLSA Premium NZ From Offering Derivatives

By Editors | 24/09/2020

The licence conditions will remain in place until CLSA Premium NZ lodges its audit and assurance reports for 2019.

Securities / Derivatives

ASIC Issues Report on Debt Capital Raising Conflicts of Interest

By Editors | 24/09/2020

ASIC’s report, in alignment with a report from IOSCO, offers better practices to manage conflicts of interest and conduct risks in debt capital market transactions.

AML / KYC

Westpac, AUSTRAC Close to Settlement Over AML Breaches

By Editors | 24/09/2020

The final penalty amount, which could reach as high as A$1.5bn, is expected to be announced at a joint press conference in coming days.

APRA Offers Guidance on Handling of Deferred Loans

By Editors | 23/09/2020

Banks should immediately inform APRA and ASIC if they experience issues collecting on loans with repayment deferrals.

Enforcement

ASIC Directs Fund Managers to Correct Product Mislabelling

By Editors | 22/09/2020

ASIC has identified 14 funds using the term ‘cash’ in their names in a confusing and inappropriate way, and 3 others with a significant liquidity mismatch.

Big Picture

A New Zero Tolerance Era for ESG Reporting

By Editors | 22/09/2020

As nations across the globe come to terms with understanding and tackling climate change, mandatory reporting of such risks across capital markets could well become the norm.

AML / KYC

Australian Banks Flagged in SARs from FinCEN Files

By Editors | 21/09/2020

Among the potentially suspicious transactions were more than $174mn of possibly illicit funds that flowed through Australian banks.

Capital / Liquidity

Stress Tests Reinforce Need for More Bank Capital: RBNZ

By Manesh Samtani | 19/09/2020

While all banks will be able to continue lending in a ‘pessimistic baseline’ scenario, capital would fall under regulatory minimums in a ‘very severe’ scenario.

Fintech / Regtech

GCRA: Little More Than Acting the Part

By Tamara Scicluna | 18/09/2020

We need real-time insights into cultural drivers of behaviour rather than backward-looking surveillance systems designed to catch bad actors after-the-fact.