ASIC wants more MIS data and oversight powers

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

31 July 2025

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has flagged seeking legislative and regulatory change from the Government to help pug the gaps which allowed the Shield and First Guardian failures to occur.

In doing so, ASIC chair Joe Longo has specifically named managed investment schemes as an area for reform to fix long-running issues.

As well, he used a speech to a Financial Services Council (FSC) event to call for a lifting of standards for gatekeepers, naming research houses, financial advisers, super trustees and the responsible entities of managed investments scheme.

“We need to ask ourselves whether some of the entities involved in this suspected misconduct are adequately captured by existing laws,” Longo said.

“Some key questions in ASIC’s focus include: Are financial and professional indemnity requirements adequate? Do we need to place limits on what superannuation can be invested in? Should we demand more of superannuation trustees and responsible entities? Do we need to place restrictions on retail investments in high-risk funds? Is the current retail client definition still ‘fit for purpose’? Or do we have to slow down the process of rolling over superannuation and creating an SMSF?”

On the question of managed investment schemes, Longo pointed out that ASIC and others had been calling for a range of reforms for almost three decades and made a case for ASIC being given power to collect data on managed funds.

He said that Australia’s managed investment scheme regime is “very permissive”

“The bar is so low to register one, it basically serves no barrier to entry at all. It doesn’t matter if the underlying asset is alpacas or meme coins – if the fund has a valid trust deed and disclosure document, ASIC has to register it,” Longo said.

“And then, so much of our work becomes about picking up the pieces afterwards when things go wrong, rather than preventing the harm – and who pays for that? All the people in this room.”

The ASIC chairman said that in circumstances where both Shield and First Guardian were made available through a platform it was incumbent on superannuation trustees to undertake sufficient due diligence of new investment options before making them available to investors.”