Check against delivery

Thanks very much Amrita.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, being the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

I’d also like to say that it’s fabulous to be joining my fellow regulators here today. We were commenting before that actually we don’t do this very much at all. So, what a stellar line up you have. I don’t often get to spend this amount of time with this crew. So hopefully you also enjoy this afternoon.

So, this afternoon, no doubt we’ll talk about the operating landscape and at the moment, any time you talk about it, it’s likely to be punctuated with the words: ‘uncertainty’ and ‘risk’.

Having worked in financial services, markets and risk management for most of my professional life, as Amrita said, I understand the challenges of operating in a constantly changing world, and appreciate the huge weight of responsibility that comes with having to meet continuously rising expectations – including from regulators.

My advice is this. Sometimes you can keep it simple. Compliance can come down to three basic principles, even in a changing world: transparency, accountability, and consistency. If you follow those principles, you’re well on your way to meeting the expectations of your stakeholders – including us.

I'm conscious of course that I am in a room full of our stakeholders and you expect us to abide by the same principles.

So, it was in that spirit of transparency, accountability and consistency that we recently published our 2025-26 corporate plan.

ASIC Corporate Plan

This latest plan builds on previous work and reflects how we’re adapting to this same constantly changing environment, and how over the next 12 months, our strategic priorities will focus on:

• Improving consumer outcomes
• Strengthening market disclosure and professional conduct
• Supporting better retirement outcomes and member services
• Strengthening operational digital and data resilience and safety, and
• Driving integrity and transparency across markets.

Today I will focus on three of these areas that fall squarely within my remit:

• Superannuation and better member services and retirement outcomes
• Integrity and transparency of Australia’s capital markets, and
• Our inquiry into ASX to ensure secure and resilient market infrastructure.

It’s worth noting too, that often in our work we look to and learn from the New Zealand experience. Our work in public and private markets that I’ll talk to is a great example of this.

Superannuation

But let’s start with super.

Australia’s total superannuation assets have more than doubled over the past decade to $4.3 trillion of funds under management, including $3 trillion in APRA-regulated funds^[1].

It’s amazing when you stop to think about it. We have the 55th largest population in the world, but we are on track to soon have the world’s second largest pool of retirement savings^[2].

But unfortunately, bigger has not necessarily meant better when it comes to the way superannuation trustees treat their members, or customers.

So, over the past 12 months:

• ASIC has taken enforcement action against three super funds over poor member services and claims handling practices.
• We have called out super trustees for weak scam and fraud practices.
• We released a landmark report detailing 34 recommendations to address the poor handling of death benefit claims.
• In only the last few weeks, we commenced civil proceedings against Equity Trustees, for alleged failures in due diligence concerning the Shield Master Fund.

We have a multi-year project underway to drive a step-change in the way trustees deliver member services, and the actions I have just mentioned are the results of some of that work. The next phase of our member services work will test how trustees are using complaints data to identify and address systemic issues.

Now, this review is a useful reminder to all our regulated entities that complaints data is a valuable tool to identify and address systemic underperformance – we expect you to use it.

We’ll also be checking in with trustees to see what progress they have made to improve their claims handling processes.

On superannuation, there is also room to improve the way trustees serve their customers in retirement – the point of the system. 

We are three years into the Retirement Income Covenant. Three years since trustees have been obliged by law to assist members with their retirement, and where do we find ourselves?

Not where we’d hoped to be, I think it’s fair to say.

A recent pulse check with APRA found that one in five trustees^[3] can’t track the success of their assistance to members in balancing the objectives of the covenant.

So we’ll shortly complete a review of member communications targeting retirement in what will be our first standalone thematic review since the implementation of the covenant.

We’ll use the findings of this review, as well as insights from the latest covenant ‘pulse check’ with APRA to inform further work in this area.

Now with more than 100,000 Australians retiring each year^[4], super funds need to do better.

Capital markets

Turning now to capital markets.

Proudly, Australia is a nation of investors. More than half of us hold investments outside our home and super.^[5]

As the country’s corporate and markets regulator, we have a mandate to maintain, facilitate and improve financial system performance and promote confident and informed participation in those markets.

So it’s our job in Australia’s markets to ask the big questions, especially when there are significant changes occurring.

Right now, of course, this includes the decline in public market listings we are seeing, and the slowdown in IPO activity. Meanwhile, we see private markets have grown rapidly, with assets under management increasing more than 160%^[6] in the past decade, and with particular growth in private credit. Super funds of course are directing investment to private markets as that sector continues to grow in size and dominance.^[7] The value of APRA-regulated funds is actually broadly equal now to the market capitalisation of the ASX itself^[8].

So ASIC released a discussion paper in February to better understand these shifting dynamics and ask some key questions:

• Do we have the right settings in place to promote confident informed participation in markets?
• What does market cleanliness look like in this new world order?
• Where might the next shock come from and are we ready for it?
• How do we keep Australia’s place in the world for investors and capital?

We received around 100 submissions from a wide range of industry sectors – and a key message we heard is that public and private markets should complement, not cannibalise each other.

We received a range of ideas for sensible adjustments to improve the health of our public markets and indeed, we have actioned many of these.

We have cleared the path for faster initial public offerings. We are in the process of expanding our approved foreign markets, further integrating Australia into the global financial system. And we have started exploring measures to streamline the dual listing of foreign companies.

In the next three months you’ll hear more from ASIC on this front.

This includes an expert report on the state of the estimated $200 billion private credit sector. And this is assisting us to better understand current disclosure, distribution, conflicts of interest, valuation, conduct practices and use of ratings in the sector.

The early indications from our surveillance report that we’ll be releasing in November tell us that practices in the private credit funds management sector vary. They’re not consistent. There are some good practices, but some areas for serious improvement.

This surveillance will be released in November, alongside a comprehensive public and private markets report and roadmap.

At that time, you can expect further proposals from ASIC with a view to ensuring Australia is an attractive investment destination while also, of course, providing appropriate protections.

ASX Inquiry

Lastly, I wanted to touch on the ASX inquiry that we announced in June.

Initiating an inquiry was an unprecedented step for ASIC, but one that was entirely commensurate with the serious failures we were seeing.

Both ourselves and the RBA, as co-regulators of ASX, had concerns over ASX's ability to maintain the nation’s critical share trading infrastructure.

The inquiry is central to our efforts to strengthen digital and data resilience across our markets – a key priority for ASIC.

Led by an expert panel, the inquiry will deliver its findings before the end of March next year.

Those findings will inform our next steps.

Closing

So to conclude, as I’ve said before, while the world we are living in may be complex, compliance doesn’t have to be.

When you look at your regulatory requirements, I encourage you to ask yourself three simple questions: Am I being transparent? Am I being accountable? And am I consistently doing what I said I would do?

Thank you.

^[1] APRA releases superannuation statistics for June 2025 | APRA

^[2] 2025-02-20-SMC-Research-Note-Global-Pension-System-Rankings.pdf

^[3] APRA Pulse check

^[4] Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia, 2022-23 financial year | Australian Bureau of Statistics

^[5] ASX Australian Investor Study 2023

^[6] Discussion paper: Australia's evolving capital markets: a discussion paper on the dynamics between public and private markets

^[7] Ibid

^[8] Report 807 Evaluating the state of the Australian public equity market: Evidence from data and academic literature