Jeffrey Lucy the Chairman of Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has explained ASIC’s role as a consumer protection regulator in an address to Consumer Affairs Victoria’s Third National Consumer Congress.

He said that ASIC’s role differed from ACCC’s as ASIC currently licences most providers of financial services and products including financial advisers, superannuation trustees, general and life insurance companies, banks and other intermediaries such as insurance and stockbrokers. The main omission from ASIC’s licensing regime under the Corporations Act is credit providers and credit intermediaries.

ASIC’s responsibilities under the ASIC Act focus on the same types of conduct that the ACCC has responsibility for under the Trade Practices Act. But ASIC’s role is limited to preventing and taking action in relation to unconscionable, misleading or deceptive conduct connected to financial services and products. ASIC’s jurisdiction under the ASIC Act is broader than under the Corporations Act as it does extend to credit.