APRA/ASIC say they’re lightening the regulatory load

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

17 June 2026

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) says it will streamline the responsible manager Australian financial services licensing requirements under the Financial Accountability Regime (FAR) by reducing the need to submit evidence of competence.

In a joint approach announced with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) it said the change would come into effect from October and will benefit approximately 2000 current Australian financial services licensees.

The announcement is allied to APRA releasing a governance review consultation paper around a new draft Prudential Standard on Governance in which it says it has sought to strengthen governance outcomes while minimising compliance costs.

That consultation paper outlined APRA’s response to earlier consultation and makes clear that that, notwithstanding the views of some stakeholders on the need to define the necessary skills for board, “APRA does not propose to prescribe specific skills”.

“Boards are best placed to determine what they need,” it said.

It said the draft standard “sets minimum requirements, but the way an entity meets them should be proportionate to its size, complexity, risk profile and structure. In some domains, such as board performance assessments and committee requirements, the standard explicitly sets a higher bar for significant financial institutions (SFIs).

“APRA has also sought to reduce overlap between fit and proper requirements and the FAR Act. APRA proposes to narrow the cohort of responsible persons and removing routine fit and proper reporting requirements for remaining responsible persons,” it said.

A joint announcement by ASIC and APRA said their objective is to streamline aspects of the FAR to reduce regulatory burden without lowering accountability standards.

“Under the regulators’ proposed changes, APRA and ASIC will remove key functions requirements from the FAR regulator rules; raise the materiality threshold for notifying APRA and ASIC of changes in accountability; and no longer require information on accountable persons’ direct reports in accountability maps.

“APRA and ASIC estimate that the changes will reduce reporting for all accountable entities and the 4500 impacted accountable people. Further, the changes to accountability maps will at least halve the number of updates entities need to make,” it said.

The joint announcement said the measures “are part of APRA and ASIC’s contribution to the Government’s Better Regulation reforms, announced in the 2026-27 Budget”, noting that the “Better Regulation reforms propose changes to FAR legislation, so that entities need only provide accountability statements and maps on request (rather than up front) and have more time to register their accountable persons”.