ASIC to Shield, First Guardian investors: ‘if in doubt make a complaint’
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has sought to justify its funding of a Super Consumers Australia web site and active canvassing of Shield and First Guardian investors by saying too few investors have, as yet, lodged complaints with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).
Further, ASIC Commissioner, Alan Kirkland has pointed to messaging based on “if in doubt, make a complaint”.
ASIC has told a Parliamentary Committee that despite an estimated 12,000 investors being affected by the collapse of Shield and First Guardian, only 2,162 had actually lodged formal complaints with AFCA.
Kirkland also revealed that Super Consumers Australia is in the process of publishing templates for investors to make complaints to AFCA.
He has outlined the extensive lengths to which the regulator has gone to prompt affected investors to lodge complaints with AFCA which might ultimately see payments being generated by the processes of the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR).
But on the question of ASIC’s involvement in the special levy being raised to fund the CSLR, Kirkland said ASIC’s role was confined to sending out the invoices.
Kirkland’s explanation to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services pointed to the Super Consumers Australia web site funded by ASIC as being fundamental to encouraging Shield and First Guardian investors to make complaints.
“We are doing what we can to encourage people who have lost money to make complaints,” Kirkland said adding that the regulator had met directly with representatives from some of the key investor groups.
“We had feedback that people were getting advice from a range of places including entities involved in these matters and didn’t know who’s advice to trust,” the ASIC commissioner said.
Kirkland also told the committee that ASIC had conducted 11 rounds of direct mail and e-mail to investors and was asked how many of the 12,000 Shield and First Guardian investors had been captured by the correspondence.
He said he could say that ASIC’s most recent mail-out that focused in on making a complaint and directing investors to SCA web site, noting that the regulator had 10,500 contact details.
“We are trying to do all we can including what we can through the mainstream media,” Kirkland said.
“Making a complaint to AFCA as a key way to get access to compensation and if AFCA makes a determination against a firm it is required to pay, if not, then the compensation scheme of last resort,” he told the committee.
Kirkland said the messaging from the regulator was “if in doubt, make a complaint. AFCA can then decide “.
And you can bet Advisers are paying the Advertising costs for ASIC to funnel people to AFCA that will then end up with Innocent Advisers paying extreme CSLR.
And what has ASIC ever done to stop these MIS fiasco’s ???
Why is ASIC funding a website to be created by Super Consumers? Shouldn’t ASIC just create the website themselves? They could even create extra pages Moneysmart website, which I am sure gathers much more traffic than an obscure website from super consumers. Just seems weird to do this, however we know they are in each others back pockets.
But then they wouldn’t be able to funnel taxpayer money to their activist friends.
I consider Alan Kirkland, former Choice CEO, a wholly inappropriate choice from Jim Chalmers to be an ASIC commissioner. Being an activist shouldn’t be the selection criteria.
There is also an obvious conflict of interest as ‘Super Consumers Australia’ was born from Choice.
Lastly, as someone who has been in the industry for decades, I contacted Super Consumers Australia to alert them to the very poor disclosure of information on product provider websites (and provided examples), and suggesting that a more consistent approach should be lobbied for. I never heard anything back, so am not sure what they spend all their taxpayer money on.
ASIC fails to take timely action against the obvious bad behaviour of a rogue minority.
ASIC fails to take timely action to protect consumers from harm.
But ASIC is totally gung ho in drumming up complaints which will have to be funded by innocent advisers.
Why is it that ASIC is so much more focused on persecuting innocent advisers, than stopping bad behaviour or protecting consumers? Is it the prevailing view in ASIC that all advisers are bad, all advisers cause consumer harm, and obvious bad behaviour by a minority should be allowed to run in order to eradicate a larger proportion of advisers in the aftermath?