The rapid innovation and developments occurring in the superannuation sector, particularly with SMSFs, have created reasonable concerns regarding whether the government and regulators are able to keep up with the pace and reduce the lag.
“These issues were recently raised with ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) and they are looking at blockchain technology for compliance, a range of efficiency measures, regtech and they’re opening up databases, so they are trying hard, and I’m more complimentary of ASIC contrary to some of the things they’ve been responsible for or associated with in the past,” former federal Labor parliamentary secretary Bernie Ripoll said during his keynote presentation at the Class Connect 2017 conference in Sydney last Thursday.
“The reality is that I don’t think as a regulator the way they can innovate is ever going to keep up with what the industry can do.
“The pace of change, the flexibility, the agility of this sector, along with technology firms and fintech firms, to make great change, I don’t think the regulator can keep up with that.”
Ripoll said more importantly, it was not possible for Parliament to keep up.
“The time that it takes to bring new legislation, let alone regulations, forward and potentially a change of government, which could mean having to start from scratch, I think there’s always going to be this gap, this mismatch, between what the sector’s doing and what Parliament and regulators are doing,” he noted.
“It’s either going to always lag or there’s going to be blocks put in place to prevent people from doing things, but that’s the danger.
“It stifles innovation and makes it tougher for the sector to be able to grow your base, keep your clients and engage them using these new methods and technologies.”
