ASIC funding model ‘perverse’: The case for licensees paying a larger share

When the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) industry funding model was initially introduced in 2017, the levy cost advisers $26.15 million, at a minimum cost for each licensee of $1,500 plus $934 per adviser.

In its seventh year now, ASIC announced on 9 July that the 2023–24 levy will leave the profession out of pocket an estimated $48.4 million, at $1,500 plus $2,878 per adviser, more than tripling since its inception.

Appearing on the latest episode of The ifa Show, WT Financial Group managing director Keith Cullen argued that the ASIC funding model is incredibly flawed and in dire need of an overhaul for the sake of the future of the advice profession.

“The $1,500 was fixed by a regulatory instrument seven years ago now as the base fee per AFSL. Every regulatory instrument since has simply taken that $1,500, never varied it, and multiplied it by the number of AFSLs that are authorised to give personal advice,” Cullen said.

While he argued that the levy is not in itself an unreasonable amount to charge advisers, he also noted that the current funding model for ASIC is highly flawed.

“On one argument, you can say that a fee of $2,500 or $3,000 per adviser to be registered into a profession is not a lot of money. And I think if you look at where the average revenue per adviser is headed in Australia, it’s easy to argue it’s not a lot of money,” he said.

Earlier this year, an adviser put forward a petition to the government asking that the portion of the levy paid by licensees be increased to reduce the financial burden on advisers, particularly as the previous ASIC levy freeze was not being renewed and saw the cost more than double for advisers while licensees continued to pay $1,500.

Cullen said it was hard to argue with the perspective that licensees should be covering a much greater proportion of the costs.

“This adviser argued to me that if 50-60-70 per cent of ASIC’s work is interfacing with licensees, then why aren’t licensees paying 50-60-70 per cent of the fee? And even if that’s not the case, then in a time when the adviser levy has tripled, why hasn’t the licensee levy tripled to at least be $4,500? That would remove some of the onus,” he said.

“I think if we’re going to be stuck with this model that we’ve got, that certainly makes a lot of sense to me. To have some form of reasonably significant increase on the amount being levied at a licensee level and then that will take the burden off individual advisers.”

Approaching the issue from another angle, Cullen explained that ASIC’s funding model should be overhauled to offer more constraint on its budget, rather than allowing it to operate without financial limitation and then make the profession cover the costs.

“I thought Senator Bragg’s report had a lot of very important things to say, but one of the concerns I had over the proposal to use the likes of fines and penalties to fund ASIC, that’s a bit perverse in and of itself,” he said.

“I don’t think anyone would mind if they just fixed the fee and created a budget that ASIC needed to operate within. I think there’s something perverse about the way the model works in so much as you’re really removing any form of budgetary restraint for supervision of the profession from ASIC and you’re saying, ‘Spend as much as you like, we’ll get it all back from the advisers’. And this was one of the concerns I had.”

Cullen argued that the current funding model, in a way, gives ASIC greater incentive to inflict additional costs on advisers as a way to increase their funding.

“As a comparison, if you decided that if you told your local police sergeant that he would have more staff if he raised a bit more money from speeding fines and jaywalking, then he could have a couple more staff members and they could all have some more time off. Well, you know what’s going to happen in your local community,” he said.

“So, I think we need to be very careful about what we’re wishing for in that regard. But definitely the model needs to change from where it is. There’s no question in my mind.”