Advisers already face 15%+ CSLR levy increases

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

2 September 2025

The Treasury consultation around the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) exceeding the financial planning sub-sector levy cap closed on Friday at much the same time advice licensees were being told their levies are “ready for payment”.

And licensees discovered by logging on to the CSLR portal provided by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) that their levies had commonly gone up by at least 15% to 17%.

Reaching out to Financial Newswire, advice licensees complained that over the same 12 months period Australia consumer price index had risen by just to 2.1%, meaning that the CSLR levies had risen by an order of about 7.3 times the CPI.

The Treasury consultation paper has thrown up a number of options and scenarios for addressing the $47 million cost over-run for the financial advice sub-sector, with a significant number of stakeholder responses arguing strongly against the minister imposing a single sub-sector special levy.

Instead, most responses seen by Financial Newswire support the minister spreading the cost of the special levy across all sub-sector while arguing that the only real answer lies in a comprehensive rewrite of the CSLR funding mechanism to include product manufacturers and managed investment schemes in particular.

The responses have also pointed to submissions already made by stakeholders to the Treasury post-implementation review of the CSLR the consultation for which kicked off in late January and finished in early February but has still yet to report.

The key element in the terms of reference for the post-implementation review has been “how the CSLR funding model is formulated, including its potential impacts on businesses who fund the industry levy”.

The bottom line of most public responses to the post-implementation review has been that the current financial adviser population is not adequate to fund the scheme as it currently exists and that managed investment schemes must be made to pull their weight.

The Financial Advice Association of Australia (FAAA) has consistently argued for an extension of the scope of the CSLR to cover Managed Investment Schemes.