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The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has imposed additional licence conditions on Diversa Trustees Limited (Diversa) to address prudential concerns relating to its investment governance frameworks and practices, including oversight of platform investment options made available to members.

Diversa acts as trustee for 10 registrable superannuation entities and has approximately 291,000 member accounts and over $15 billion in funds under management.

The additional licence conditions follow APRA’s recent thematic review of the investment governance, strategic planning and member outcomes practices of superannuation trustees that offer platforms (Platform Trustees). Broadly, the review identified deficiencies in Diversa’s onboarding processes and practices, investment option monitoring and reporting, and management of conflicts of interest.

Specifically, APRA’s review of Diversa identified concerns regarding the:

• onboarding of new investment options, including the lack of sufficiently rigorous, well-defined and consistently applied investment selection criteria;
• adequacy of operational due diligence undertaken in relation to new investment options; and
• adequacy of Diversa’s investment monitoring and reporting framework.

APRA requires assurance, with appropriate oversight by an independent expert, that Diversa’s investment governance framework and practices are fit for purpose in their design and operation.

So called ‘pump and dump’ operators – unscrupulous actors who start rumours about small cap securities to inflate the share price in the hope of making a quick profit, are increasingly targeting Australian investors ahead of the holiday period, with a notable rise in reports to the regulator.

ASIC is warning the public to be vigilant about widespread, coordinated pump and dump schemes targeting retail investors, including Australians trading in overseas markets, who can be tricked into buying thinly traded overseas stocks that are then rapidly sold down by the promoters once the price has been inflated.

ASIC has also observed scammers fraudulently using the identity of Australian celebrities to lure victims into messaging apps like WhatsApp where they are directed to buy shares.

This warning comes as four people involved in a coordinated scheme to pump up Australian share prices, before dumping them at inflated prices were sentenced today in Downing Street Court.

The Federal Court has ordered Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) pay $250 million in penalties for widespread misconduct and systemic risk failures affecting the Australian Government, taxpayers and at least 65,000 retail bank customers.

These are the largest combined penalties ASIC has ever secured against a single entity.

His Honour Justice Jonathan Beach increased the penalty for ANZ’s inaccurate reporting of secondary bond market turnover data by $10 million, bringing the penalty in relation to that misconduct to $50 million.

The outcome is in relation to four separate court proceedings spanning misconduct across ANZ’s Institutional and Retail divisions, announced in September 2025 (25-201MR).

The Federal Court has ordered Australian financial services licensee RM Capital Pty Ltd to pay a $575,000 penalty and its authorised representative The SMSF Club Pty Ltd to pay a $350,000 penalty over conflicted remuneration breaches.

The penalties follow a Federal Court finding in February 2024 that RM Capital had failed to take reasonable steps between August 2013 and August 2016 to ensure that SMSF Club did not accept conflicted remuneration.

The Court also made findings that on multiple occasions between November 2014 and July 2016 SMSF Club accepted conflicted remuneration. It found that SMSF Club received a total of $135,863.65 in referral fees from real estate agent Positive RealEstate Pty Ltd (for assisting SMSF Club clients to set up a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) and purchase property from Positive RealEstate.

The referral fees were paid as part of a referral agreement between SMSF Club and Positive Real Estate. On each occasion it accepted a referral fee, SMSF Club breached the provision of the Corporations Act which prohibits an authorised representative from accepting conflicted remuneration.

As the licensee that authorised SMSF Club to provide financial services, RM Capital contravened s963F of the Corporations Act by failing to take reasonable steps to ensure SMSF Club did not accept the payments.

ASIC has banned Melbourne-based financial adviser Louis Van Coppenhagen from providing financial services, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business or performing any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business for 7 years.

ASIC found that Mr Van Coppenhagen, while authorised by MWL Financial Services Pty Ltd (MWL), gave inappropriate advice to certain clients which was not in their best interests. Mr Van Coppenhagen recommended certain MWL clients invest most of their superannuation into the ‘High Growth’ or ‘Growth’ class of the Shield Master Fund (Shield) which were high risk investments.

ASIC also found that Mr Van Coppenhagen, while authorised by United Global Capital Pty Ltd (UGC), was instrumental to the implementation of UGC’s advice model including preparing a template Advice Proposal Document. ASIC cancelled UGC’s licence for providing conflicted personal advice concerning highly speculative investments.

ASIC has reason to believe that Mr Van Coppenhagen is not a fit and proper person, is not competent and is likely to contravene a financial services law.

The banning order took effect from 16 December 2025.

Macquarie Securities (Australia) Limited (MSAL) has admitted to misleading conduct in relation to the misreporting millions of short sales over several years, caused by repeated failures in its systems and processes.

Netwealth has agreed to pay over $100 million in compensation to more than 1,000 Australians who invested their superannuation in the First Guardian Master Fund and has admitted it contravened the Corporations Act.

ASIC has commenced proceedings in the Federal Court against Netwealth Superannuation Services Pty Ltd (NSS) and Netwealth Investments Limited (NIL), as trustees of the Netwealth Superannuation Master Fund (NSMF).

NSS and NIL have admitted they failed to obtain and therefore did not assess sufficient information about the First Guardian Master Fund, or make sufficient independent enquiries, to understand or evaluate the investment risk in the First Guardian Diversified Class and Growth Class prior to or while offering them as investment options to NSMF members.

ASIC will seek orders that NSS and NIL failed to do all things necessary to ensure that the financial services covered by their financial services licences were provided efficiently, honestly and fairly.

ASIC has also accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from NSS and NIL to ensure members are compensated 100% of the amounts they invested in First Guardian less any amounts withdrawn. The compensation payments will be made by 30 January 2026.

ASIC has today released a series of updates to improve and simplify its regulatory guidance on complying with technological and operational resilience rules for market participants and market operators.

Resilient market participants and market operators are essential to the integrity of our securities and futures markets and to the efficient functioning of the economy.

The updates are the third stage of ASIC’s work to review and clarify guidance relating to Chapters 8A and 8B of the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Securities Markets) 2017 and the ASIC Market Integrity Rules (Futures Markets) 2017 (Resilience Rules) set out in:

• Regulatory Guide 265 Guidance on ASIC market integrity rules for participants of securities markets (RG 265)
• Regulatory Guide 266 Guidance on ASIC market integrity rules for participants of futures markets (RG 266), and
• Regulatory Guide 172 Financial markets: Domestic and overseas operators (RG 172).

The updates align with ASIC’s commitment to regulatory simplification and include changes to reduce repetition and the length of guidance, as well as structural improvements. Further, the updates:

• incorporate guidance on arrangements for identifying critical business services previously shared in September 2024 in a letter to participants
• give certainty that critical business services arrangements may leverage existing resilience frameworks, including service provider’s business continuity plans and redundancy arrangements for outsourcing arrangements, where suitable
• confirm that, in some situations, full redundancy arrangements may not be required for all critical business services
• clarify thresholds for identifying and reporting major events to ASIC
• remove referenced to superseded APRA standards and guidance.

The updates also incorporate class waivers ASIC granted in August 2025 to provide relief from some requirements for outsourcing arrangements where supply of energy or communications services were identified as critical business services.

APRA and AUSTRAC have both announced actions to address weaknesses in Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s (Bendigo Bank) money laundering risk management, non‑financial risk management practices and risk culture.

It follows the findings of an independent review undertaken by Deloitte into suspected money laundering at a Bendigo Bank branch, which the bank reported to AUSTRAC. This independent review found significant deficiencies with Bendigo Bank’s approach to the identification, mitigation and management of money laundering and terrorism financing risk.

APRA is concerned that the weaknesses identified by that investigation may be applicable across the bank’s operations more broadly. AUSTRAC shares APRA’s concerns.

As a result, APRA and AUSTRAC are today announcing the following actions, which are coordinated to ensure Bendigo Bank intensifies its efforts to strengthen its non-financial risk management systems and practices:

• APRA will require Bendigo Bank to undertake a root cause analysis to understand the extent of non-financial risk management issues at the bank, going beyond money laundering and terrorism financing;
• APRA will require Bendigo Bank to hold an operational risk capital add-on of $50 million; and
• AUSTRAC has commenced an enforcement investigation which will focus on whether Bendigo Bank has complied with its obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act).