In a bold new play, a consortium led by social media giant Facebook has announced plans to enter the financial services sector through the launch of a cryptocurrency called Libra. Both a currency and a blockchain backed payment system, the project could have a profound impact on the financial servic ...

Avid readers of Unravelled over the past few years cannot have failed to notice that there are moves afoot to introduce two new forms of collective investment vehicle each promising a shiny tax-neutral alternative to the unit trust and hopefully saving Australian lawyers a lot of sleepless nights ...

After a considerable gestation period the proposed new design and distribution obligations for financial products, and intervention powers for ASIC, took their first, tentative steps yesterday, with the release of exposure draft legislation. ...

APRA this week released a discussion paper and draft prudential standards and practice guides. This Insight considers the significant changes it will lead to across the industry. ...

As regulatory and political pressure increases on the major banks in Australia alternative credit providers are entering the market with a variety of products to attract borrowers The unitranche loan is an example of one such product Partner Warwick Newell Senior Overseas Practitioner Alex Tonkin ...

2017 was a busy year in superannuation The Allens superannuation team takes stock of the legislative and regulatory reform proposals that have been mooted for 2018 and gazes into the crystal ball to see what might lie ahead this year ...

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services has published its report on the life insurance industry The report includes a nice summary of previous inquiries reviews reforms and events since 2013 The Committee appears to think that all of these previous efforts have been ...

The Federal Government has announced that it proposes to strengthen ASICs powers and to increase the severity of penalties civil and criminal that can be imposed on individuals and corporations in line with the ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforces recommendations Partner Rachel Nicolson and Senior ...

A lot has happened since our most recent update The Royal Commission has published the submissions received from ASIC and industry participants on policy questions posed by Counsel Assisting at the end of the financial advice hearings And the small business lending hearings have been held ...

Many of you will be familiar with the long and tortured history of fees and costs disclosure regulation in Australia. The most recent set of issues can be traced back to 2014 when ASIC tried to address what it considered to be gaps in and inconsistent application of the former regime ...