The Stockbrokers and Investment Advisers Association (SIAA) has argued that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) does not have “the legislative authority” to follow through on its proposal to publish internal dispute resolution (IDR) data at the licensee level.
Last month, ASIC released a consultation paper on its plans to publish two dashboards containing reportable situations and internal dispute resolution (IDR) data in the second half of 2025.
This would see firm-level data go public, ASIC stated, including businesses’ names and Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) numbers.
In its submission to ASIC’s consultation on the proposal, SIAA said while the Corporations Act requires ASIC to publish information about the reportable situations reports and the entities in relation to which those reports are lodged, it does not “consider that the provision requires ASIC to publicly disclose the licensee’s name against their data”.
“As stated in the consultation paper, the precise contents and format of the data ASIC publishes are not prescribed by legislation. Accordingly, we consider that ASIC would be exceeding its regulatory remit by publicly naming and shaming licensees in this way,” SIAA said.
The submission added: “SIAA fundamentally opposes ASIC’s approach to the publication of firm level IDR and reportable situations data that includes firms’ names and licence numbers.
“Using licensees’ data to publicly name and shame them is a completely inappropriate use of data that licensees are required by law to report to ASIC.”
SIAA also contended that any improvement in transparency as a result of the measures would not be worth the increased burden on licensees.
“It does not appear from the consultation paper that ASIC has considered the full impact of these proposals,” it said.
“Reporting at a licensee level is not consistent with the purpose of the breach reporting regime
“Our primary concern is that the threshold question of the intended objective of this initiative has not been satisfactorily justified.”
Not a job for consumers
Importantly, SIAA noted that it is in strong agreement with ASIC and the consultation paper that licensees providing information about reportable situations are a “critical source of regulatory intelligence” for the regulator that can help it focus its resources and take appropriate regulatory action.
However, the association argued that publishing breach reporting data on a name-and-shame basis “does not further any of these regulatory aims”.
“Supervising licensees is not a role for consumers. It is ASIC’s responsibility,” SIAA said.
“A consumer who reads the reportable situations data of a licensee does not have any of ASIC’s investigative, supervisory or enforcement powers. ASIC is meant to undertake the analysis of the data.
“We therefore struggle to understand how publicly naming and shaming licensees helps consumers when it is ASIC that has the responsibility to analyse the data provided, supervise licensees and enforce the law.
“We consider that this naming and shaming approach is akin to ASIC handballing its responsibilities to the court of public opinion and abrogating its responsibilities for supervision and enforcement.”
Public naming and shaming, SIAA added, also creates a strong disincentive to licensees to “fully and frankly report” under the regime.
“Public naming and shaming of licensees runs counter to the objective of the regime which is to enhance accountability and transparency. We consider that public naming and shaming of licensees represents a backwards step,” the submission said.
“In a public name-and-shame regime, licensees considering whether their obligations to report have been triggered will need to consider, as an additional matter, the reputational risk of details of the breach being publicly reported against their name. Firms may change the level of detail they provide in their reports as this reputational risk will disincentivise them from providing additional information.”
Ultimately, it will reduce both the quality and usefulness of reports to ASIC, SIAA said.
“If a situation is a borderline case, the impact of a public name-and-shame regime will be that the licensee will not report it. This will provide a disincentive to good behaviour,” it added.
“This runs counter to ASIC’s desire for open and transparent communication. It will also have a deleterious and significant impact on the compliance culture of licensees.”
Let’s cancel the asfl regime in its current form and restart with something more democratic, focusing on what consumers really value. ASIC is drunk with their totalitarian powers, doing the bidding of the big end of town.
ASIC’s proposal to publish firm-level breach and complaint data under its internal dispute resolution (IDR) framework is fundamentally flawed and should be abandoned. The idea of naming individual licensees, despite not being required by legislation, appears to be driven more by optics and ideology than by evidence-based policy. Publicly associating firms with raw data—stripped of scale, context, or nuance—would create a distorted narrative. In practice, it will conflate volume with misconduct, punishing firms with rigorous compliance systems while rewarding opacity.
This initiative doesn’t empower consumers—it misleads them. Unlike ASIC, consumers lack the tools to interpret breach data appropriately or assess its root causes. Handing them the burden of moral adjudication while positioning this as “transparency” is a dereliction of regulatory responsibility. Worse, it risks chilling honest disclosure. Once reputational risk is introduced into breach reporting, licensees—especially smaller or independent ones—will face a stark incentive to under-report. The result: degraded data quality, less transparency, and a compliance culture that becomes performative instead of substantive.
More troubling is how comfortably this policy would sit within a broader campaign to undermine independent advisers currently being waged by Industry Super and their many allies. ASIC’s discretion should be exercised to support regulatory outcomes, not to weaponise transparency. If ASIC proceeds, it will not be enhancing trust—it will be eroding it, and doing so in service of a policy direction that seems both politically motivated and structurally unsound.
ASIC persue 1% of complaints.
And here they are wanting to kill advisers yet again posting Fee consent spelling mistakes.
ASIC how about you go chase something useful, like the next Dixon’s MIS fiasco. 10 years of complaints and ASIC investigate once and do nothing then turn up at end when it’s all done.
Great job ASIC, upper cut yourself please multiple times
So, ASIC regulates the licensees, waits for reports of failures, and then wants to publish to name and shame? Isn’t it kind of proving the point that ASIC is failing?
If ASIC publish complaint data, then the matter goes to AFCA and AFCA decide the client is lying and the adviser did nothing wrong. What happens? Does ASIC alter the previous report to say “the client, MR X, was lying”. Or do ASIC just publish their usual next report, without mentioning the lying client and forget that they are destroying the business of the adviser who did nothing wrong.
“licensees providing information about reportable situations are a “critical source of regulatory intelligence” for the regulator that can help it focus its resources and take appropriate regulatory action”
Is the regulatory intelligence, pinging advisers for mistakenly breaching a clients contribution cap? It’s worthwhile to know what is the cost of this whole process is vs’s the benefit, because when you look at AFCA stats and benign cases reported by FSCP in relation to adviser conduct, you have to ask is it worth it or does this system need tweaking?
ASIC should pilot this program by publishing the names of ASIC staff members every time someone complains about them, or every time they stuff something up.
The internet would crash if this got up…