ASIC followed up on 124 reports of real estate agents advising tenants to apply for early release of super to pay their rent and issued 13 warnings to real estate agents to rectify their behaviour. ASIC also had its enforcement teams look “more intensely” at a number of matters, but said there was unlikely to be further action.
“The conduct isn’t continuing, and we’ve seen a huge amount of walk back from real estate agents,” ASIC executive director for assessment and intelligence Warren Day told the joint committee on corporations.
A private school was also given a copy of ASIC’s initial letter after it tried to advise parents on how to pay fees.
The headline is misleading. ASIC in fact did nothing. No prosecutions for clear breaches. No one named and shamed. NOTHING AT ALL. An adviser on the other hand would have been fined, banned, shamed and probably sent to jail.
how about all of the accountants which would’ve done the same thing?
ASIC was just trying to stop the flow of money from the Industry Super Funds – nothing more than that.
The ABC was promoting a withdrawal and re contribution (tax deduction) strategy on its news site.
Which the ATO has outright stated they will be looking for as an illegal strategy.
Only another 15,000 agents to go. You have to wonder if they actually believe the statement about “huge amount of walk back”
Why bother being licensed at all, as when you get caught giving unlicensed advice, you just get a warning. Imagine the compliance nightmare if you were found giving verbal advice with no SOA – I don’t think that would result in a warning.
Everyone is suddenly a financial adviser….wtf?
Financial coach or wealth coach is a better term.
Cancel your afsl’s and leave your licensees. If you get caught giving unlicensed advice you simply receive a warning!
hasn’t ASIC got anything better to do. Is this a priority? Ate the media also guilty of giving advice?
124 reports….. only 13 ” warnings ” issued and a term called “walk back”, with no further action from ASIC.
Well done ASIC……..the consistency never fails to astound us all.
What were the ” other matters ” that apparently were looked in to on a “more intense” basis ??
Does that mean the issue of early super release by Real Estate agents was not looked at intensely enough ?
What about issues of Real Estate agents openly advertising ” Ideal investment for your self managed super fund” or
” Amazing investment opportunity” etc etc.
This clearly shows that ASIC don’t really want to get involved in this matter and its a token slap.
Just waiting on ASIC to go after unlicensed accountants providing financial advice. No one questions how all these SMSF’s are setup without advice. How many times have we seen SMSF’s setup by an accountant and the members have no idea what they are doing.
And of course financial planners are blameless, for years gave unlicensed tax advice or no tax advice at all. Doing a mickey mouse course for the TPB doesn’t turn you into a tax guru, same as a mickey mouse course for a financial planning licence doesn’t make you a financial planning guru.
The difference is that financial advisers are now constantly scrutinised and viciously persecuted for the most minor of issues. Accountants on the other hand are free to give as much dodgy advice as they like, while the regulators completely ignore it.
Unlicensed accountants have open slather. It is only if they are stupid enough to become licensed that they run into trouble.
How come no SoA was provided? DId they not provide advice, but ASIC now proceeding further, just warnings? If a Financial Planner did this, they would be dragged over the coals.