{"id":26911,"date":"2014-07-22T14:17:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T04:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=26911"},"modified":"2024-07-17T13:35:14","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T03:35:14","slug":"asic-cancels-suspends-11-afsls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2014\/07\/22\/asic-cancels-suspends-11-afsls\/","title":{"rendered":"ASIC Cancels, Suspends 11 AFSLs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">Eight Australian financial services licences (AFSLs) have been cancelled and three more suspended in the latest round of regulatory action from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->ASIC has confirmed it has cancelled eight AFSLs and suspended two more, because the licensees failed to lodge audited annual statements. The action was taken following a proactive review of 72 AFSL holders operating in the financial advice industry.<\/p>\n<p>Action was taken against the licensees because they failed to lodge their audited annual profit and loss statements and balance sheets, and then failed to notify ASIC within 10 days of becoming aware of the breach.<\/p>\n<p>The licensees are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Accountants Plus<\/li>\n<li>Benchmark Holdings<\/li>\n<li>Citywide Investment Services<\/li>\n<li>Lateral Thinking<\/li>\n<li>Mariner Insurance<\/li>\n<li>TIS Logistics<\/li>\n<li>Graeme Bartlett &amp; Associates<\/li>\n<li>Neville Krynauw &amp; Associates<\/li>\n<li>Cabot Square Financial Planning<\/li>\n<li>Southpoint Insurance Brokers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A further seven licensees face possible suspension or cancellation for the same compliance error.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the license cancellations, ASIC\u2019s review also led to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Voluntary compliance by 38 AFSLs who lodged all outstanding documents<\/li>\n<li>17 entities voluntarily cancelling their AFSL as they are no longer operating a financial services business<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>ASIC said the annual lodgement of audited accounts is an important part of a licensee demonstrating it has adequate financial resources to provide the services covered by its licence and to conduct the business in compliance with the Corporations Act 2001. This includes carrying out supervisory arrangements of its representatives and ensuring there is a financial buffer that reduces the risk of a disorderly wind-up if the business ceases.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn our experience, failure to comply with reporting obligations is often an indicator of a poor compliance culture,\u201d said ASIC Deputy Chairman, <strong>Peter Kell<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cASIC will take action against licensees that fail to lodge these statements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, ASIC has also suspended the AFSL of Brisbane-based financial planning business, Custom Wealth Solutions Dealer Services, for a period of three months.<\/p>\n<p>The suspension was handed down after the business entered into receivership on 11 June 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the appointment of the receivers and managers, ASIC said it had been conducting a surveillance of Custom Wealth as part of its regular surveillance activities.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of the suspension, Custom Wealth and\/or its representatives are unable to provide financial services to clients under the Custom Wealth licence and will need to seek alternative arrangements to continue providing financial services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eight Australian financial services licences (AFSLs) have been cancelled and three more suspended in the latest round of regulatory action from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-compliance-regulation","category-dealer-groups","headers-new"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}