Going into the 2013 election the present Government promised a review of the regulatory framework for retirement income streams Today the Government finally released its report It has been a long time coming And while the main outcome - a new category of tax effective pensions and annuities - will ...

ASIC and APRA often cop flak from various quarters including from us and so today for something different we train our sights on the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK What the FCA has said about providing personal advice to retail clients is interesting debatable and likely to induce a strong ...

The Productivity Commission has released an issues paper inviting submissions on the criteria that should be used to assess the efficiency and competitiveness of Australias superannuation system This will be of interest not only to superannuation trustees but also to service providers including fund ...

Last month we were fortunate enough to host Barney Frank co-architect of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act 2010 to discuss financial regulation reform Coincidentally a couple of weeks later we were treated to a presentation on US financial regulation reforms by a US ...

The Dodd Frank Act is a bit like the US financial system it is trying to regulate - vast complex and hard to wade through It creates a bunch of new regulators on top of what was already a pretty solid cast and gives them wide-ranging powers They can not only set capital and liquidity requirements ...

The Federal Attorney-Generals Department has released its draft Project Plan for the implementation of the wide-ranging recommendations arising from the recent statutory review of Australias anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime Partner Peter Haig Associate Andrew Shetliffe ...

The Bill to amend the conflicted remuneration provisions in the Corporations Act for life insurance has been introduced into Parliament a second time and draft regulations have been released for comment However we struggle to know how to describe them because the changes seem to have conflicting ...

For more than 150 years trustees have been able to obtain advice from courts on matters affecting the management or administration of trust property and on matters respecting the interpretation of trust deeds Trustees would usually only seek such advice however if they had doubts about a proposed ...

The Commonwealth Treasury is seeking feedback on how to kickstart social impact investment in Australia ...

ASIC released its report Financial advice Fees for no service today It says that there has been a systemic failure by advice licensees within some of the major banks and AMP to provide ongoing advice in return for ongoing fees The report relates chiefly to arrangements between licensees and clients ...