The clock is ticking for Foreign Financial Service Providers (FFSP) who offer financial services to wholesale and professional investors in Australia to adopt one of four options under a new Australian licensing regime put in place by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). FFSPs who are currently relying on existing relief from ASIC and…
What are the major differences between retail and wholesale investors? Retail investors must be provided with a Financial Services Guide (FSG), Statement of Advice (SOA) and where appropriate, a regulated offer document such as a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) Retail investors have access to external dispute resolution schemes, while wholesale investors generally do not Retail…
What is it? The Government is seeking to introduce the Treasury Laws Amendment (Design and Distribution Obligations and Product Intervention Power) Bill 2018 (Cth) (“Bill”) into law. The new regime’s purpose is to promote the provision of suitable financial products to consumers by requiring issuers and distributers to appropriately market and distribute financial products aimed…
What is a CCIV? The Corporate Collective Investment Vehicle (CCIV) will be a passive collective investment vehicle that is a public company and is structured as an umbrella fund incorporating one or more sub-funds. These sub-funds are not required to be separate legal entities, thereby allowing the offer of multiple products and investment strategies within…
Earlier today ASIC released Report 583 – Review of exchange traded products (ETPs), which sets out the findings and recommendations of ASIC’s comprehensive review of ETPs in Australia. This report will be of interest to issuers and market operators of ETPs, along with retail investors. Overall, the report found that the market is performing well,…
ASIC has released its independent report (the Report) in respect to RG 97 which it commissioned on 1 November 2017 in response to strong feedback from industry regarding challenges associated with the implementation of RG 97 and ASIC Class Order CO 14/1252. The author of the report, Mr Darren McShane engaged more than 120 industry…