Don’t let a breach get out of reach

ASIC has cancelled the Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence of Capital Guard AU Pty Ltd (Capital Guard) after finding that it had engaged in dishonest conduct including the selling of a fake bond and providing false documents to its auditor.

View the full media release.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has released its response to consultation on proposed updates to the section 57 non-confidentiality determination supporting publication of aggregated statistics from the National Claims and Policies Database (NCPD). The response outlines APRA’s final position and next steps, including implementation of a refreshed publication format.

APRA will proceed with the agreed changes in accordance with the timelines set out in the response.

The response and supporting materials are available on the APRA website: NCPD non-confidentiality determination and refreshed publication format

The public register allows the public to verify if a VASP is registered with AUSTRAC before using its services.

The register lists all VASPs registered and regulated in Australia. It improves transparency, helps people identify legitimate businesses and supports Australia’s effort to combat money laundering, terrorism financing and other serious crimes. It also brings Australia in line with international standards.

Who needs to be registered

You may need to register with AUSTRAC if your business provides any of the following designated virtual asset services:

• exchange virtual assets for money (and vice versa), or make arrangements for this type of exchange
• exchange virtual assets for virtual assets, or make arrangements for this type of exchange
• provide a virtual asset safekeeping service
• accept instructions to transfer virtual assets on behalf of customers or make transferred virtual assets available to customers
• provide financial services in connection with the offer or sale of a virtual asset where the business is participating in the offer or sale.

Since 2018, AUSTRAC has regulated VASPs to ensure they meet ongoing regulatory requirements. The public register provides a simple way to verify whether a provider is registered and operating under AUSTRAC’s oversight. Similar to our remittance sector register(external link), it helps people identify legitimate providers and reduces the risk of financial crime.

All virtual asset businesses must be registered with AUSTRAC before they can offer these services in Australia.

AUSTRAC may:

• cancel a registration if there are reasonable grounds to believe the person or business is no longer carrying on a VASP service
• suspend, cancel or refuse to renew a registration if a business poses an unacceptable risk of money laundering, terrorism financing, people smuggling or other serious crime.

AUSTRAC encourages inactive virtual asset businesses to voluntarily withdraw their registrations, rather than risk having them cancelled.

Find out more about the register

Australia’s private credit sector is on notice. ASIC is calling on all private credit industry participants to ensure their 30 June asset valuations are current, accurate and grounded in realistic assumptions.

ASIC also expects boards, auditors and all participants across the private credit eco-system, including responsible entities, trustees and chief investment officers, to assess their practices against ASIC’s ten principles and lift standards where needed.

The sector is entering its first meaningful test, with tighter liquidity, emerging borrower stress and signs of credit deterioration testing valuations, governance and investor disclosures.

Early insights from ASIC’s private credit work indicate the market is moving from a period of rapid growth into a more demanding phase, with persistent macroeconomic pressure and a slow creep in credit stress indicators.

Retail investor and superannuation exposure is increasing, and recent isolated incidents have highlighted how Australian retail investors can be exposed to offshore redemption constraints and liquidity pressures through local feeder funds. There are inherent linkages between the international and domestic markets as with all global financial markets.

When done well, private credit provides an important source of funding and supports economic growth and innovation. But weaknesses in governance, disclosure, valuation practices and conflicts management become more pronounced as conditions tighten.

ASIC is probing these and other issues across the sector. Active surveillances across wholesale and retail funds are well progressed and multiple enforcement investigations are underway. ASIC continues to engage with industry bodies on stronger standards across retail and wholesale funds and review financial reports and audit files for private companies and superannuation funds.

These obligations cannot be outsourced. Participants must ensure that all those in their funds management value chain—from origination through to audit—are meeting their responsibilities to support participants’ obligations.

ASIC’s message is straightforward: participants should use this reporting cycle to challenge assumptions, refresh valuations, and lift practices in line with ASIC’s ten principles.

Read the insights from ASIC’s survey, ongoing surveillance and industry engagement (news item).

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) Chair John Lonsdale today paid tribute to Deputy Chair Margaret Cole who finishes her term at APRA today.

Mr Lonsdale said Ms Cole has made a significant contribution to APRA over her five-year term through her prudential oversight of the systemically significant superannuation industry and for strengthening APRA’s enforcement work.

“Through her work at APRA, Margaret has made a positive impact on the superannuation industry and the retirement outcomes of Australians.

“On behalf of APRA, I thank Margaret for her many contributions and wish her all the best for the future,” Mr Lonsdale said.

APRA expects the Australian Government to make an announcement about the APRA Deputy Chair recruitment process in due course.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published the findings of its inaugural System Risk Stress Test, which focused on links between the banking and superannuation systems.

The exercise was conducted in 2025 with the four major banks and six large superannuation funds, and examined how a hypothetical “severe but plausible” shock might impact the financial system.

Although APRA has long operated an extensive industry-based stress testing program, this was the first time APRA has run a stress test examining how connections between different sectors could amplify or dampen risks.

For the inaugural System Risk Stress Test, APRA asked participating institutions to model a scenario involving liquidity pressures exceeding any experienced by large Australian banks over the past 50 years. The stress applied to superannuation funds was similarly severe, with member withdrawals and switching significantly surpassing levels observed during COVID-19. Adding additional complexity, the scenario incorporated an operational disruption at a material service provider.

The findings highlighted the resilience of Australia’s financial system to liquidity and market shocks, with all participating institutions able to withstand the shock and rebuild liquidity over the test period.

They also demonstrated the constructive role the superannuation sector can play as a stabilising force for the banking sector.

Other key findings included:

• The test highlighted system vulnerabilities that could amplify stress events, such as concentration risks, mismatched behavioural assumptions and common dependencies on major service providers.
• The response of superannuation funds to stress events can materially affect their members, banks and financial markets. For example, when an individual bank is under liquidity pressure, superannuation funds’ withdrawal of funding can amplify the liquidity stress. However, in a broader downturn and solvency stress, superannuation funds’ willingness to provide equity capital to banks illustrates their ability to dampen risk and support financial stability.
• Some vulnerabilities in the system are likely to increase as the superannuation system grows and matures. Decisions by a small number of large funds could have outsized and more consequential effects across the system. As more members move into retirement, this will increase demands on liquidity and funds’ response capabilities to meet pension payments and member withdrawals.
• Better entity preparedness for stress events across industries will make the financial system stronger. The test found superannuation funds need to uplift their capabilities to test severe stress commensurate with the sector’s greater systemic footprint. It also highlighted areas where banks – which have more experience with liquidity stress testing – can uplift their capabilities.

APRA Chair John Lonsdale said the System Risk Stress Test had produced valuable insights that would inform APRA’s policy and supervision priorities.

“As our financial system becomes more interconnected, decisions made in one part of the system not only impact other financial institutions in the same sector, but those in different sectors as well as service providers.

“With superannuation expected to keep growing its share of the financial system in coming years, it’s essential we gain deeper insights into how super funds are likely to respond to a severe stress event – and how their decisions may impact other parts of the financial system.

“The findings of the stress test demonstrate the ability of our banks and superannuation funds to respond to financial stress and operational disruption. However, they also highlight areas where banks and super funds will need to invest more effort to further build up their resilience.

“APRA will use the findings to inform proposed amendments to bank liquidity requirements that we will consult on within the next 12 months, as well as core supervisory activities for banks and super funds. Additionally, they reinforce the importance of the work we are doing on material service provider arrangements in relation to operational risk management,” Mr Lonsdale said.

The full findings of the System Risk Stress Test are available on the APRA website at: System Risk Stress Test

ASIC will today gather market and financial services leaders in a push to bolster competitiveness in Australia’s capital markets, after new research finds Australia needs to move quickly or be left behind as other jurisdictions adopt financial market innovation at speed.

View the full media release.

The Supreme Court of New South Wales has found that Regional Express Holdings Limited (Rex) breached its continuous disclosure obligations over a 28 February 2023 profit forecast.

View the full media release.

The Federal Court has ordered Mercer Super pay penalties totalling $10.3 million for systemic failures to report investigations into significant member services issues to ASIC, including an investigation into insurance premiums continuing to be charged after members had died, and only refunded later.

View the full media release.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has begun consulting on proposed changes to banks’ credit risk capital settings aimed at supporting lending while maintaining financial resilience.

The changes, which were first flagged in March, are part of a package of reforms to bank capital and liquidity settings that are intended to ensure the sector is resilient to future shocks, responsive to evolving conditions, and able to continue supporting households and businesses through the cycle.

While upholding APRA’s continued commitment to “unquestionably strong” settings, today’s consultation paper identifies several areas of corporate lending where APRA believes standardised risk weights can be lowered to better align with the underlying risk, without undermining resilience.
The key proposals include:

1. Infrastructure lending – to allow a lower risk weight for large domestic public infrastructure exposures.
2. Unrated corporate lending – to allow a lower risk weight for high-quality unrated corporate exposures subject to certain criteria.
3. Land acquisition, development and construction (ADC) lending – to adjust criteria to allow for more exposures to qualify for the lower 100 per cent risk weight for residential property development.

In combination, APRA expects these measures to increase banks’ lending capacity and support investment, while remaining consistent with an “unquestionably strong”, risk-based capital framework.

APRA Chair John Lonsdale said today’s proposals aligned with APRA’s strategic objective to “get the balance right” by identifying opportunities to reduce regulatory complexity and burden without unduly increasing risk.

“At a time of global economic and geopolitical uncertainty, we believe that Australia’s ‘unquestionably strong’ bank capital framework remans appropriate to safeguard financial stability in a high-risk environment.

“But we also recognise the importance of periodically reviewing our settings to ensure that the framework is calibrated to the underlying risks and that we’re achieving the right balance between safety and stability, as well as efficiency and competition.

“By making our risk weights for some categories of corporate lending more granular and risk-sensitive, we believe we can improve the efficiency of the capital framework without compromising core prudential objectives. By reducing the amount of capital banks need to hold against these categories of loans, it should give banks greater capacity to deploy released capital in a manner that supports broader economic outcomes,” Mr Lonsdale said.

Today’s consultation on credit risk is the first of three workstreams that comprise the capital and liquidity package. APRA intends to finalise credit risk capital changes in the second half of 2026 for a proposed effective date of 1 April 2027.

Proposals relating to liquidity risk and market risk will be consulted on in the next 12 months.

Taken together, APRA expects the package will be cost neutral and strengthen the financial resilience of Australian banks.

Today’s consultation paper, draft standards and guidance are available on APRA’s website at: Getting the balance right – Enhancing credit risk capital for authorised deposit-taking institutions

ASIC is warning superannuation trustees to address stark and persistent failures to protect retirement savings, including gaps in the monitoring of harmful advice fee deductions, unusual fees and investment patterns, and high-risk superannuation switching activity.

View the full media release.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has added seven new frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding superannuation data reporting.

The superannuation data reporting FAQs are available on the APRA website at: Frequently Asked Questions – Superannuation Data Transformation

ASIC has accepted John Gordon Owenell’s application for the cancellation of his registration as a company auditor following ASIC raising concerns with Mr Owenell’s alleged failure to comply with auditor independence and conflicts of interest requirements under the Corporations Act 2001 and the APES110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants (including Independence Standards).

View the full media release.

Former Keystone Asset Management directors and compliance committee members put hundreds of millions of dollars of Australians’ superannuation at risk by investing scheme funds in related entities and third parties without proper safeguards, ASIC alleges in new Federal Court proceedings.

View the full media release.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has commenced an investigation into Diversa Trustees Limited’s (Diversa) executive remuneration decision-making and processes.

The investigation will consider whether Diversa has complied with its regulatory obligations. In particular, APRA will investigate whether remuneration decisions were made in accordance with APRA’s prudential standards and trustees’ duties under the SIS Act.

APRA Chair John Lonsdale said: “Prudent remuneration practices play a critical role in driving sound governance and protecting the best financial interests of superannuation fund members.

“APRA expects superannuation trustees to ensure remuneration decisions reinforce accountability and appropriately reflect risk and performance outcomes, particularly in circumstances where member outcomes may have been adversely affected.”

The investigation will not consider whether Diversa is responsible for member losses arising from the collapse of First Guardian, which is currently the subject of ASIC’s proceedings in the Federal Court.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published farewell remarks delivered by Deputy Chair Margaret Cole at a Conexus boardroom lunch.

In her remarks, Ms Cole reflects on her five-year tenure at APRA and highlights the role of transparency, performance and accountability in strengthening outcomes for superannuation members.

Her comments include:

• “Transparency in super is an important hard-won change that has benefitted millions of Australians.”
• “When you are responsible for other people’s money, you must be very careful what you spend it on. I’d consider this basic hygiene for super trustees. It’s also a requirement of the SIS Act and of Trust Law.”
• “The performance test has its detractors, but it has worked to achieve the objective for which it was designed – to enable transparency around performance outcomes and to facilitate change so that members do not get stuck in underperforming products.”

The full speech is available on the APRA website at: APRA publishes Deputy Chair Margaret Cole’s farewell remarks

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has published a speech delivered this morning by Member Therese McCarthy Hockey to the AFIA Risk Summit in Melbourne.

In “Fighting fire with fire”, Ms McCarthy Hockey spoke about the need for banks, superannuation funds and insurers to move more urgently in response to the threats posed by frontier AI models and the looming realisation of encryption-breaking quantum computers.

• “As we race to identify and patch vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by bad actors, nothing will achieve this faster than AI – whether frontier models or the advanced models already in circulation. By harnessing AI to build the fire breaks we need to keep the flames from spreading, we can fight fire with fire.”
• “Frontier AI is not just a cyber risk issue. It’s third-party risk, a concentration risk and a sovereign access risk. A critical business process, control or cyber-defence capability that depends on a single offshore frontier AI model may be disrupted not only by an outage or cyber incident but by a regulatory decision made overseas.”
• “We expect to see organisations granted early access to frontier AI models sharing information and insights with peers and suppliers. Where one institution learns something material about AI-enabled vulnerabilities, model limitations, jailbreak techniques or defensive use cases, the system as a whole benefits when that knowledge is shared quickly and safely.”
• “Until recently, the hypothetical day when quantum computers become powerful enough to break the cryptographic security that currently protects global digital infrastructure was thought to be more than 10 years away. But advancements in computing technology, including AI, have led to speculation that cryptographically relevant quantum computing could become a reality much sooner – years earlier in fact.”

The full speech is available on the APRA website at: APRA Member Therese McCarthy Hockey’s remarks to the 2026 AFIA Risk Summit.

ASIC has put car finance providers on notice after identifying a range of concerns in relation to third party distributor arrangements, sales practices and monitoring of consumer outcomes.

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ASIC has made an order banning Brett Anthony Newbound and cancelling the Australian financial services (AFS) licence and Australian credit licence (ACL) of Freedom Wealth Services Pty Ltd.

View the full media release.