Parliamentary Committee's Recommendations Will Impact Financial Services Industry

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services' long-awaited report into Australia's financial services sector has made 11 recommendations which will have an impact (either directly or indirectly) on distributors, platform providers and product manufacturers, as well as the financial services industry generally.

The Government has indicated that it will wait for the Cooper review of the superannuation industry expected in June of next year before making a decision on the Committee's recommendations.

It should be noted though that it is possible that ASIC may implement those of the Committee's recommendations which concern it prior to any response from the Government or indeed ASIC may seek to put in place the recommendations that it made to the Committee but which were not accepted (for example, suitability requirements for high risk products or increasing the capital requirements for a holder of an Australian financial services licence (A