On 27 June 2025, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced that it had provided Australian financial services and credit licensees additional targeted relief under the reportable situations regime.
Background
The reportable situations regime requires licensees to promptly identify, fix and report potential misconduct.
Since October 2021, ASIC has conducted extensive work to strengthen the reportable situations regime. More recently, on 18 February 2025, it opened a consultation on additional relief from reporting certain breaches of the misleading and deceptive conduct provisions, and certain contraventions of civil penalties. The consultation closed on 11 March 2025.
Additional targeted relief
In light of the feedback received to the February 2025 consultation ASIC has broadened the types of reports that are exempt by increasing the:
- Time allowed for rectification (from when the breach first occurred) from 30 days to 60 days.
- Number of impacted consumers from five to ten.
- Total financial loss or damage to consumers from $500 to $1000.
Importantly, if a breach satisfies all these thresholds, it is not deemed reportable to ASIC. ASIC did not accept certain suggestions arising from the consultation, including those requesting that not all conditions under the criteria should have to be met for relief to apply.
ASIC has also clarified that a report is taken to be lodged with ASIC, if a licensee has submitted a breach report to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority that contains all the information APRA has requested.
Reminder
ASIC reminds licensees to ensure they have the systems and processes in place to identify, escalate, investigate, rectify and capture incidents and breaches as part of their general obligations.