The forecast increase in funds under management (FUM) in Australia’s superannuation sector as well as a potential surge of products and investors into the country’s financial system are among key challenges ASIC is set to face.
ASIC chair Greg Medcraft highlighted three key challenges the corporate regulator would face in the years ahead in an address to the Asian and Oceanian Stock Exchanges Federation 30th General Assembly and working committee meeting in Sydney late last week.
Medcraft said the first challenge involved ASIC’s “growing regulatory perimeter”, which included the flow-on effect of money funnelled into Australia’s financial system from the ever-growing superannuation sector.
He cited the rise in FUM in the superannuation sector to $3 trillion over the next decade and then $5 trillion by 2030 as a prime example.
ASIC’s second challenge centres on the growth of complexity in the financial system.
“Advances in technology have led to increasingly complex financial products, information channels and financial markets,” Medcraft said.
“Technology is advancing at a rapid rate and the complexity it brings also increases risk in the system.”
The third challenge for the corporate regulator was an in-house challenge, he said.
“The final challenge is for ASIC to leverage its resources and be proactive, because it is through proactive regulation that we build resilience in the system,” he said.
ASIC intended to overcome the challenges by achieving its three strategic objectives, he said.
The first objective is to create confident and informed investors and financial consumers; the second objective is to create fair and efficient financial markets; with the third objective to achieve efficient registration and licensing.
