ASIC shows breach reports fall, advice costs $15m
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has updated its Reportable Situations (RS) dashboard with two years of data, providing insights into the nature and impact of licensees’ self-reported breaches.
This data includes volumes of reports submitted, the nature of breaches by product and issue, customer impact, and rectification of breaches by firms. ASIC considers this an important tool for improving transparency.
During FY26, ASIC received 11,838 reports of breaches, which is a decrease of 490 from the prior year. Of these, 7,673 came from Australian financial services licensees (AFSLs) and 4,520 from Australian credit licensees.
Advice Reports
Financial advice made up a small proportion of total reports, with 1,122 reports related to financial advice. Over half of these reports, 641, related to advice, while 292, or 26%, related to fees or charges.
Just over 80% of these reports had a customer impact, affecting 68,356 customers and resulting in total customer financial losses of $15 million.
The most common issues in financial advice reports were advice, which accounted for 57.1% of reports, followed by fees and charges or account administration at 26%, disclosure at 8.4%, false or misleading statements at 6.6%, and general obligations at 3.3%.
Root Cause and Investigation Triggers
Breaking down the root cause of financial advice reports, just over a third were caused by staff negligence or error, while 22% were caused by staff misconduct.
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A staff or business unit report was the most likely trigger for an investigation, accounting for 44.8% of investigations. Internal compliance triggered 15.2% of investigations. Other triggers were less frequent but still notable: other sources accounted for 10.4% of investigations, ASIC-initiated probes accounted for 8.1%, and adviser assurance programmes accounted for 6.1% of cases being examined.
The time taken to identify and investigate breaches varied. In 46% of cases, it took over a year to identify the breach, but 90% of investigations were completed in less than 30 days once the breach was identified.
For the broader reporting environment across all sectors, a smaller share, 26% of total reports, took more than a year to be identified, while 75% of investigations were concluded within 30 days.
In two-thirds of cases, the breach was completely rectified. Preventative measures were put in place to prevent reoccurrence in 61% of advice cases.
By contrast, the aggregate industry saw 80% of breaches fully corrected and preventative actions implemented in 72% of instances.
Just under half of advice breaches were resolved in less than 30 days, and only 1.4% required more than a year to reach a final outcome.
