CS 22 Proposed update to ASIC’s guidance on Product Disclosure Statements

Released 9 July 2025. Comments closed 6 August 2025.

We propose to update Regulatory Guide 168 Disclosure: Product Disclosure Statements (and other disclosure obligations) (RG 168) to ensure our guidance is current and comprehensive.

The proposed update to RG 168 simplifies and consolidates our guidance on Product Disclosure Statements (PDSs), reflecting ASIC's commitment to reducing regulatory complexity, providing practical guidance, enhancing clarity, and improving accessibility for all stakeholders.

The revisions incorporate current regulatory approaches, include additional relevant guidance, and update outdated references. In particular, we propose to:

incorporate other guidance on PDS disclosure, lodgement and notification obligations to ensure, as much as possible, relevant guidance on PDSs is in one guide
remove the guidance relating to Financial Services Guides and Statements of Advice, as this guidance is already covered in Regulatory Guide 175 AFS licensing: Financial product advisers—Conduct and disclosure (RG 175)
amend and cross-reference information on fees and costs
clarify the legislative basis for the current Good Disclosure Principles, and
reframe the existing guidance on misleading and deceptive conduct to highlight examples of general disclosure concerns with PDSs, without changing its substance.

The information sheets and regulatory guides containing other PDS disclosure, lodgement and notification guidance that we propose to incorporate will become redundant. As such, we propose to withdraw the following guidance when the updated RG 168 is published:

Information Sheet 94 Notification requirements for Product Disclosure Statements (INFO 94)
Information Sheet 155 Shorter PDSs—Complying with requirements for superannuation products, simple managed investment schemes and simple sub-fund products (INFO 155)
Regulatory Guide 65 Section 1013DA disclosure guidelines (RG 65)
Regulatory Guide 66 Transaction-specific disclosure for PDSs (RG 66)
Regulatory Guide 197 Warrants: Out-of-use notices (RG 197), and
Regulatory Guide 219 Non-standard margin lending facilities: Disclosure to investors (RG 219).

See ’Related links’ to download the draft updated RG 168 (Attachment 1 to CS 22) and a detailed summary of the proposed changes (Attachment 2 to CS 22).

Providing feedback

We invite feedback on our proposal. You should send your submission to rri.consultation@asic.gov.au by 5 pm AEST on Wednesday 6 August 2025.

We are particularly interested in receiving feedback on whether there is other PDS guidance that should be incorporated in RG 168, other ways we could simplify the guidance, or if there is guidance proposed to be withdrawn from RG 168 that should be retained and why.

You may choose to remain anonymous or use an alias when providing feedback. However, if you do remain anonymous, we will not be able to contact you to discuss your feedback should we need to.

We will not treat your feedback as confidential unless you specifically request that we treat the whole or part of it (such as any personal or financial information) as confidential.

Please see our privacy policy for more information on how we handle personal information, your rights to seek access to and correct personal information, and your right to complain about breaches of privacy by ASIC.

Feedback on CS 22

Released 3 December 2025

ASIC received 8 non-confidential submissions. We have summarised key feedback on the draft updated RG 168 and our responses, including how we have addressed the feedback in the final RG 168 where relevant.

Summary of feedback for CS 22 (PDF 270 KB)

Submissions

(non-confidential submissions)