ob体育 today published its first report on its approach to licence applications to help inform businesses and individuals wanting to provide financial services or credit, or register as a liquidator or auditor.
Report 433 Overview of licensing and professional registration registration applications: July to December 2014 (REP 433) 聽sets out recent regulatory outcomes achieved by ob体育 in relation to Australian financial services (AFS) applications, Australian credit licence (credit licence) applications, liquidator registration applications, company auditor and approved SMSF auditor registration applications.
ob体育 Deputy Chairman Peter Kell said the report is intended to assist applicants, current licensees and professional registrants better understand ob体育鈥檚 assessment of applications and highlight areas of specific focus, to improve overall and ongoing compliance.
The report will also assist stakeholders to better understand the overall number and type of participants that ob体育 licenses or registers across the financial services sector, the credit industry, auditors and liquidators and financial markets. It provides a picture of how this population is changing over time.
鈥楾he report is part of ob体育's ongoing commitment to providing greater public information about our regulatory activities. The outcomes in this report demonstrate ob体育鈥檚 commitment to ensuring financial services and credit licensees, professional registrants and other licensees meet their key obligations, including minimum standards of compliance, supervision and conduct,鈥� Mr Kell said.
鈥業n approving applications, ob体育 may impose additional conditions on, and/or make adjustments to the original licence application. Further, we may refuse a licence application if we are not satisfied that the applicant can offer financial or credit services in compliance with the legal obligations.鈥�
For 1 July to 31 December 2014:
- ob体育 assessed approximately 1,660 applications, with 46% relating to a new licence application and the remaining 40% relating to variations to existing licence; 14% related to professional registration (liquidators and auditors)
- Of the total number of applications assessed, 27% of these related to an Australian financial services (AFS) licence and 14% related to an Australian credit licence
- 49% of all applications assessed during this period were approved
- 73% of those approved were in a form other than as requested by the applicant (with 68% of these relating to an AFS licence and 83% related to a credit licence)
- eight AFS licences were suspended, 120 AFS licences were cancelled and 172 credit licences were cancelled
- ob体育 assessed 235 applications for professional registration as liquidators and auditors; and
- ob体育 also cancelled 426 SMSF auditors who failed to comply with their SMSF auditor competency examination by 30 June 2014 (refer: 14-335MR).
Mr Kell said ob体育鈥檚 licensing assessment and registration work provided ob体育 with聽 insights into innovative products, new business models and practices as well as higher risk market segments, that can feed into ob体育鈥檚 broader surveillance and enforcement work.
鈥楨xamples are the area of foreign exchange-related financial products and services, where concerns about some potential and current applicants have led to greater scrutiny of the sector across ob体育 and the emerging sector of peer-to peer lending, where technology聽 website-based platforms are being used to display a range of loans and investments consumers can acquire,鈥� Mr Kell said
In addition to reporting of key outcomes and statistics, ob体育 will use these six-monthly reports:
- to highlight sectors of focus for regulatory intervention based on issues identified in the preceding period
- where necessary, to foreshadow changes to ob体育鈥檚 assessment and processing of applications (and related guidance information), and
- to impose new licence conditions or requirements on individual licensees in response to poor behaviour and misconduct.
Background
REP 433 is the first of six-monthly reports ob体育 intends publishing on licensing and registration activities.
REP 433 covers new applications and variations to existing licences. The regulatory outcomes apply equally to applications for a variation to an existing licence. There is a narrower range of regulatory outcomes associated with the registration regime, given the reduced scope for tailoring or imposition of conditions on registrants compared to licensees.
This first report provides detail about the licensing process which will not be repeated in subsequent reports.