Statement in response to Treasury’s updates to proposed amendments to DDO

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The FPA welcomes the Treasury’s announcement of further updates to the Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO regime) by removing the requirement for financial planners to report nil complaints or nil information to product manufacturers. Given this would have been the vast majority of reporting required by financial planners in relation to target market determinations (TMD), this administrative relief by the Government is a welcome outcome for the financial planning profession.

However, based on these proposed updates, the FPA calls on ASIC to remove formal reporting periods which create unnecessary and unworkable record keeping and reporting requirements for financial planners and instead move to an “as required” reporting requirement. There is an opportunity for ASIC to create an alignment between dispute resolution and TMD reporting to remove further layers of unnecessary regulatory burden, duplication and costs on our members and the profession.

The FPA also remains concerned with the lack of clarity or definition from product manufacturers in relation to significant dealing reporting. The FPA encourages ASIC to take action against products who have failed to clearly define what a significant dealing is in relation to their specific product.

The FPA will put forward a submission in response to the consultation paper and looks forward to continuing the conversations with the Government.