ASIC commences ethics compliance consultation

While the industry code is still under development, the CIF outlined that it would begin working on a new code by “mid 2018”.

The report reads: “The proposed reforms will be industry-led, and individual industry participants have committed to taking immediate steps (having regard to competition law requirements) to implement the reform package. However, to ensure the ongoing viability of the reforms and equal consumer protections, the reforms will need to be captured in an industry code that enables enforcement, applies across the industry and includes new participants over time.

“The CIF is considering a number of approaches, including working with ASIC on establishing an ASIC-approved code for all participants in the mortgage industry, and/or repurposing current industry codes to include these reforms, and to house the appropriate monitoring and compliance functions.”

The code will reportedly take into account the outcomes of the ASIC Enforcement Review’s assessment of ASIC’s code approval powers, and any new obligation for industry participants to subscribe to an approved industry code.

The report continued: “A ‘mortgage broking industry code’ would apply to mortgage brokers, lenders, aggregators and, where appropriate, referral businesses and would be subject[ed] to all applicable regulatory and competition law approvals.”

The chair of the CIF, Anthony Waldron, has previously said that the mortgage industry code could either be a repurposed code that already exists (such as one used by industry bodies) or one led by ASIC.

“This is a coded, directional piece to say, [and] we want to make sure that the industry takes it seriously and that the government and all players can be ensuring that they are comfortable the industry is moving forward. The code will provide that ongoing monitoring to ensure that it will happen in the future,” Mr Waldron told Mortgage Business sister title The Adviser last year. 

ASIC has said that it intends to release a regulatory guide setting out its final policy for the approval and oversight of compliance schemes for financial advisers by the end of September 2018.

[Related: Brokers to have new code and unique identifier numbers]