The Global Banks Sector Group at HSF has released a new podcast series ‘Banking on people in an age of digital transformation’.  The series further explores themes covered in our annual publication, the Global Bank Review. Our first episode ‘Banks and social shifts: their impact on staff‘ explores how digital transformation, fostering a culture of … Read more

Yesterday, ASIC released its updated Regulatory Guide 78 Breach reporting by AFS licensees and credit licensees (RG 78). Since the introduction of the new ASIC breach reporting regime on 1 October 2021, it is safe to say that there has been and continues to be confusion and ambiguity around the legal scope and practical operation … Read more

Last week, ASIC commenced the first court proceedings alleging unfair contract terms in an insurance contract. The case involves standard form underwritten home and contents insurance contracts issued by Auto & General Insurance Company Limited (Auto & General). On 5 April 2021, the unfair contract term protections in Subdivision BA of the ASIC Act were … Read more

It’s time! We are excited to launch our brand new (and what we think is Australia’s first) ‘Breach Reporting Hotline’ service, which enables you to ‘bounce’ discrete queries off our team of experts as a way of cutting through some of the complexity that is intrinsic to this new regime. For more information, please see … Read more

The breach reporting regime continues to give rise to ambiguity for licensees. As we have commented previously, there continues to be a mismatch in breach reporting practices across the industry and ASIC expectations, as well as a divergence of breach reporting practices between licensees. A common area of over-reporting is in the context of reporting … Read more

Sections 12BF-12BM of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) (ASIC Act) contain provisions designed to protect consumers and certain small business in respect of unfair contract terms in relation to their application to financial services (UCT Regime). The introduction of civil penalties in the UCT Regime in late 2022 and the flow-on … Read more

It is common for superannuation trustees to seek to amend the governing rules of a superannuation fund. This regularly occurs during fund and product rationalisation activity, successor fund transfers, and new product launches. The typical formula for assessing whether a trust deed amendment can be made by the trustee will involve: examining the amendment power … Read more

The new best financial interests duty (BFID) for superannuation trustees should represent a pathway to improve the decision-making of the trustee to better, or at least more visibly, calibrate with the interests of the fund’s beneficiaries. In this, it seems, it should be a ‘beautiful’ thing. The problem which the superannuation industry has been confronting, … Read more