ASIC urges industry to provide business metrics

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is reminding organisations and individuals that it regulates to submit business activity metrics into the new ASIC Regulatory Portal by Thursday, 27 September 2018.

These metrics, which cover the previous financial year, include the number of credit representatives at 30 June 2018 authorised to engage in specified credit activities (on behalf of the company under its Australian credit licence) and the number of days that the entity was authorised to operate in this area.

The information will be used by ASIC to calculate how much businesses will be charged under new funding arrangements.

Under the Corporations (Fees) Amendment (ASIC Fees) Act 2018, which passed Parliament in June, the federal government will be able to recover the cost of ASIC’s regulatory activities directly from industry participants through fees and levies adjusted to reflect the financial regulator’s actual costs.

Amendments to the original legislation include the ability to prescribe different fees based on the complexity of the chargeable matters being investigated, which ASIC will have the discretion to categorise as low, medium or high.

As a result of the law reforms, which came into effect in July, those that “create the need for and benefit from ASIC’s regulation will bear the costs”.

As such, while the Australian government will continue to determine ASIC’s total funding through the annual budget process, for 2017–18, $246.4 million of ASIC’s total budgeted resources of $387.7 million will be recovered through levies on the industry.

The industry funding model will recover the actual amount spent during the previous financial year, so levies will only be calculated and issued in the following financial year. Therefore, regulated entities will need to submit information to ASIC between July and September each year.

The first invoices are set to be issued in January 2019.

The corporate regulator has reminded the industry that letters had already been sent to each regulated company’s registered office address with instructions on how to register on the portal.

ASIC commissioner Cathie Armour said: “We are all settling in to this new funding model and your attention and time towards completing the process is appreciated.

“The deadline is a few days away and we are urging the rest of our industry stakeholders to act now and complete the process online.”

[Related: ASIC urges industry to register with AFCA]