Inside ASIC

The financial regulator has had a revamp and is putting its renewed resources to good use, with a rise in investigations.

- TOM WATSON

The country's largest superannuation fund, AustralianSuper, found itself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons in February this year.

The Federal Court ruled that the super giant had breached one of its fundamental duties by failing to merge multiple accounts held by more than 90,000 members between July 2013 and March 2023 a failure that cost members millions of dollars in fees and lost returns.

As a result, AustralianSuper was ordered to pay a $27 million fine in addition to providing remediation to the members who were affected.

This is just one example of the many cases taken on by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) every year. After all, the regulator filed the initial civil proceedings against AustralianSuper in 2023.

In the 2024-25 financial year alone, the regulator commenced more than 250 new investigations. This was a notable jump from 168 the year before, and it was no accident.

ASIC chair Joe Longo says that the increase in investigations is a direct result of the reform agenda the regulator has embarked on in recent years - reform that has seen the organisation restructured and its executive refreshed, and that has ushered in a greater embrace of technology.

“A whole lot of changes have been made, but what's really driving them is my desire to ensure that ASIC acts as a whole of agency,” says Longo. “So what we're doing is being cleverer and more sophisticated about bringing together all the data we've got and working more effectively internally to identify matters that ought to get quicker attention.”

Part of the new approach is ensuring that the regulator is more scrupulous about how it uses its resources in going after big and small fish.