Sectors of the financial services industry that prove to have a low level of compliance issues should be given discounts when it comes to the funding model for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the SMSF Association has said.
“We’ve previously suggested that there should be discounts for those licensees and sectors that are performing well with low levels of complaints,” SMSF Association chief executive John Maroney told selfmanagedsuper.
“We think that the SMSF sector is run and advised pretty well, and it can always be better and we’d always encourage improvements, but if you have a low level of complaints in certain areas, then we think there’s a case for having lower costs applied to them, rather than the same or average cost applying across everything.
“We’re not sure if that’s going to happen at some stage, but I’ve seen overseas that, over time, funding models tend to evolve, so it’s useful to monitor them and we’ll make suggestions again in the future when there are reviews that try to steer the cost of ASIC more to where the resources are most needed, rather than just across the whole sector.”
Maroney also suggested a graduated fee for general advice.
“We think it is relevant to the number of advisers, rather than just having a flat fee,” he noted.
“Again, this may not happen in the short term, but maybe over time [it might be considered].”
On 15 June, the ASIC Supervisory Cost Recovery Levy Bill 2017 and related bills received passage through the Senate.
Effective from 1 July, the corporate watchdog’s regulatory costs will be recovered from all industry sectors regulated by ASIC through annual levies.
