The Australian Investments & Securities Commission (ASIC) will release its long-awaited broker remuneration review in a “couple of weeks”.
In a panel at the RFi Group’s Australian Mortgage Innovation Summit 2017 in Sydney yesterday (23 February),
Michael Saadat, senior executive leader of deposit takers, credit & insurers at ASIC, said that the regulator was currently busy finalising the review.
“We’re hoping to have that done in the next couple of weeks,” he said. “The report will show what the consumer outcomes are in the broking channel versus the lender direct channel and will be of great interest to [the summit] audience and stakeholders more broadly.”
While he would not divulge too much information at this time, Saadat said that ASIC had collected a “very significant” amount of data meaning the review will be “very well informed” through the information collated.
He also praised the finance industry in general, saying that ASIC had seen progress since it started its work with its interest only loan review in 2015.
“We put out a report in September 2015 which highlighted some concerns that we have in terms of the way the banks were conducting their serviceability assessments with regards to interest only loans. We made a series of recommendations and the industry agreed to adopt those recommendations.”
At the time, concerns were raised about borrowers being given interest only loans for extensive periods and serviceability that was not as conservative as it should have been.
“We put out a second report late last year which focused on the conduct of brokers in arranging interest-only loans. And the story was more positive than for the 12 months prior,” Saadat said.
However, ASIC still sees room for improvement and has since worked with both lenders and brokers to ensure that all recommendations made are eventually adopted.
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