Regulatory simplification

Navigating regulatory complexity is a significant challenge. ASIC is committed to simplifying regulation and improving how people interact with us.

Simplification is about making it easier to find regulatory information, interact with ASIC, and understand regulatory obligations. It supports effective enforcement, reduces unnecessary burden, and helps consumers, investors and businesses make informed decisions.

ASIC is undertaking a multi-year program focused on:

• Improving access to regulatory information
• Reducing complexity in regulatory instruments
• Making it easier to interact with ASIC
• Supporting simplification through law reform.

This long-term approach will allow us to make meaningful changes in stages, prioritising what matters most while testing and learning to ensure each step is embedded sustainably.

This work also sits within the broader culture of continuous improvement to which ASIC is committed.

ASIC will update this webpage as this work develops.

Reports and publications

In September 2025, we published our regulatory simplification report. The report sets out our progress on initiatives and seeks a broad range of views on how we can more efficiently and effectively administer the law in the areas we regulate, how we can make it easier to interact with us, and how we can simplify guidance, legislative instruments and forms.

Opportunities to reduce red tape through law reform are also on the table. Our efforts to simplify regulation of the financial sector will deliver benefits for consumers, businesses and investors, while contributing to the Government’s productivity agenda.

ASIC Simplification Consultative Group

In 2025, ASIC Chair Joe Longo established the ASIC Simplification Consultative Group (ASCG), comprising highly respected consumer, business and industry leaders. The Group is co-chaired by Joe Longo and Nicola Wakefield-Evans (Board member of the Future Fund, non-executive director Viva Energy Group and Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and Board Chair of MetLife Australia).

The role of this group is to provide ASIC with fresh thinking and practical ideas to address key issues of regulatory complexity in areas of law administered by ASIC.

Members of the group are drawn from a broad range of organisations, including:

• the Australian Institute of Company Directors
• the Consumer Action Law Centre
• Super Consumers Australia
• the Governance Institute
• Business Council of Australia
• Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
• the Council of Small Business Organisations.

Expert advisers group

ASIC has also established a group of expert advisers who provide technical advice on the ideas proposed by the ASCG, as well as sharing their own ideas for consideration. Input from these expert advisers is co-ordinated by Kate O’Rourke (ASIC Commissioner) and Professor Andrew Godwin (Principal Fellow, Melbourne Law School, ex Special Counsel Australian Law Reform Commission).

The expert group engagement will be targeted, based on the particular background and skills of the membership and the topics to be discussed.

ASIC’s regulatory simplification work and initiatives

• We have redesigned our website, removing over 9,000 pages of duplicated content and improving search functionality.
• We are piloting roadmap guides for small company directors and financial advice providers to make it easier for people to navigate and comply with regulatory requirements.
• We have created best-practice drafting principles to guide the development of ASIC’s regulatory instruments.
• Pilots have been initiated to simplify and consolidate legislative instruments.
• Over the next 6 months, we will begin accepting email lodgements for a range of higher-volume, time-sensitive forms, and from 1 October 2025, we will accept methods of electronic signing for all ASIC forms. This includes both physical and electronic signatures on all ASIC paper forms.
• We are continuing to engage with Treasury on law reform proposals.

Other recent improvements:

• Streamlined misconduct reporting
• Updated guidance for liquidators, making it easier to report misconduct
• Cessation of automatic requests for supplementary liquidator reports in favour of targeted requests
• Two-year IPO fast-track trial for ASX listings
• Multi-factor authentication for improved security
• New modern and integrated digital portal for AFS licence applications
• Enhanced statutory dispatch functionality in the ASIC Portal

How to provide input

We welcome information or suggestions from the public relevant to our simplification work.

We invite submissions by 15 October 2025 to our regulatory simplification report and the questions it poses about how ASIC can make regulation easier.

You can email the simplification group secretariat directly simplificationconsultativegroup@asic.gov.au.

For all other enquiries, please see alternative contact options on our Contact Us page.

What is ASIC going to do next

ASIC will consider feedback in response to its report and will consider and prioritise simplification initiatives to implement.

Relevant Media Releases

• Speech by Chair Joe Longo at ASIC Annual Forum 2024: Bridging generations – regulating for all Australians
• 25-190MR ASIC slashes red tape and calls for further regulatory simplification proposals
• ASIC publishes regulatory reform correspondence