The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has posted its Corporate Plan, which seeks to chart its course over the next four years.
As one may anticipate, it is heavy on tech-related items, including crypto or digital assets.
Joseph Longo, Chair of ASIC, states in the intro:
“In last year’s corporate plan, ASIC’s priorities included reducing the risk of harm to consumers caused by poor product design and governance, as well as enhancing cyber and operational resilience. These issues remain top priorities for ASIC. We will broaden our focus to other digitally enabled misconduct as emerging technologies and products change our financial ecosystem. Our focus will include scams and crypto-assets.”
And;
“A fundamental priority for ASIC will continue to be our significant investment in technology so that we can be a leading digitally enabled and data-informed regulator. We will equip our people with the right skills to harness the benefits of this investment. This will enable us to better identify and assess trends, measure the impact of our work, and do our work more efficiently.”
The report is downloadable here.
ASIC’s four external strategic priorities are outlined as follows:
- Product design and distribution: Reduce the risk of harm to consumers of financial and credit products, caused by poor product design, distribution and marketing, especially by driving compliance with new requirements.
- Sustainable finance: Support market integrity through proactive supervision and enforcement of governance, transparency and disclosure standards in relation to sustainable finance.
- Retirement decision making: Protect consumers, especially as they plan and make decisions for retirement, with a focus on superannuation products, managed investments and financial advice.
- Technology risks: Focus on the impacts of technology in financial markets and services, drive good cyber-risk and operational resilience practices, and act to address digitally enabled misconduct, including scams.
ASIC states that it will take action to protect investors in regard to crypto while seeking to develop an effective regulatory framework.
