Australia

Market Infrastructure

ASIC Issues Draft Guidance on Product Design Obligations

By Editors | 21/12/2019

From April 2021, design and distribution obligations will require issuers to focus on meeting consumer needs when designing, marketing and distributing financial products.

Fintech / Regtech

ACCC Delays Open Banking Launch for More Testing

By Editors | 20/12/2019

Under the new timeline, consumers can direct the major banks to share credit and debit card, deposit and transaction data from July 2020, and mortgage and personal loan data from November 2020.

Enforcement

Westpac Ordered to Pay A$9.15m Penalty for Poor Advice

By Editors | 20/12/2019

In addition to the A$9.15 million penalty, Westpac is required to pay ASIC’s legal costs, and A$12.7 million in compensation to clients that received bad advice from one of the bank’s adviser.

AML / KYC

BSP Probes Ten Banks Linked to Westpac AML Violations

By Editors | 19/12/2019

The banks received funds for their clients through the Bank of the Philippine Islands, which was the local partner of the Westpac money transfer service known as LitePay.

Capital / Liquidity

ANZ Announces New Remediation Costs to ‘Fix’ 3.4m Customer Accounts

By Editors | 19/12/2019

At its AGM on Tuesday, ANZ announced an additional A$682mn charge for remediation work, where a total 3.4 million accounts “need fixing”.

Market Infrastructure

Cyber Resilience Practices at Financial Firms Improving: ASIC

By Editors | 19/12/2019

Improvements have been seen at larger firms in response planning, mitigation action planning, and to ensure events that occur are contained, do not propagate, and neutralised as quickly as possible.

Market Infrastructure

ASIC Approves ABA’s Updated Banking Code of Practice

By Editors | 18/12/2019

ASIC has given its final approval for the new version of the Banking Code of Practice, which implements recommendations from the Royal Commission.

Enforcement

ASIC Launches Court Proceedings Against NAB Over Service Fees

By Editors | 18/12/2019

NAB is alleged to have broken the law more than 12,000 times by charging customers fees for no service and issuing defective fee disclosure statements.

ASIC Urges More Progress to Improve Insurance in Superannuation

By Editors | 18/12/2019

ASIC has observed improvements by a “significant number of trustees” as a result of the industry’s implementation of the Insurance in Superannuation Voluntary Code of Practice.