The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued an updated guidance to financial services to return refunds owed to their customers much faster.
Deputy Chair of ASIC, Karen Chester said the draft Regulatory Guide 000: Consumer remediation was an important step towards improving remediation across the financial services industry.
“Proactive remediation upon discovery of misconduct or other failures is necessary for licensees to achieve good outcomes for their consumers and comply with their licensing obligations to act efficiently, honestly and fairly,” Ms Chester said.
“Recent experience has shown that poor conduct has significant financial implications for companies, their investors and ultimately their customers,” she said.
“This is demonstrated by the costly lag and drag of remediation and reputational damage.”
Ms Chester said ASIC was currently monitoring 64 remediations that would see the return of about $5.4 billion to more than 5.6 million consumers upon finalisation.
The Deputy Chair said she wanted the new Guidance to help firms remediate with greater confidence and speed.
“Importantly, we have expanded our Guidance to cover all financial services licensees, credit licensees and retirement service providers,” she said.
“Our draft Guidance sets out how all licensees should act to ensure their remediations are conducted efficiently, honestly and fairly.”
Ms Chester said licensees must “do better” at identifying and remediating problems earlier.
She said people could have a say on the draft Regulatory Guidance until 11 February with ASIC’s 90-page draft Guidance at this PS News link.
