BFCSA Blog

AH yes we are not the only ones noticing that something is not quite right with our over-bloated banks.  An American securities manager rang me two years ago: "I have visited Australia three times recently and we could not figure out what you guys were doing to keep the loan circuit still running.  Your banks have been doing exactly the same as us....amazing." http://www.clmr.unsw.edu.au/article/ethics/white-collar-crime%2C-aml%2C-bribery-%26-corruption/open-letter-australian-banks An Open Letter to Australian Banks By Ross Buckley, University of New South Wales 31 August 2012   This has been an extraordinary year for bank frauds.  JPMorgan Chase in London loses more than $US2 billion in six weeks placing massive, stupid bets on credit default swaps. HSBC accepts more than $15 billion in bulk cash transactions from Mexico, Russia and other high-risk countries, over three years, without conducting the checks required by anti-money-laundering laws. This prestigious bank thereby facilitates money laundering by major drug cartels and...

CommFP says ASIC always knew 16 June, 2014 Mike Taylor 5 comments Latest News Pay rises forecast for financial sector workers New dealer group picks up another practice Planners should ask hard questions to keep clients Healthy inflows boost retail and wholesale funds Solicitor free trust structure  Commonwealth Financial Planning (CommFP) has provided a Senate Committee with documents it says proves that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) was well aware of the extent of its compensation arrangements.  The documentation, published on the Senate Committee's web site raises serious questions about why neither ASIC chairman, Greg Medcraft nor his deputy, Peter Kell, were made aware of the extent of CommFP's arrangements and the role of ASIC's own officers and why the regulator's original submission to the committee ultimately proved to be misleading.  ASIC chairman, Greg Medcraft last month issued a statement expressing concern that the regulator had been misled and foreshadowing the imposition...

Reader asks:  Where are all the people affected by Matt George from Money Choice lets all get together and make the government do something? Dear Reader: You need to be in a collective group which we have already provided. Your power is in numbers.  Just email me and we will place you on the MC register to enable you to plan the next chapter and take control of the situation as aggrieved consumers with a voice. Did you notice that Stephen Kane was head of the aggregator FAST GROUP, picking up the bank commissions re Matt's deals, and where is Stephen now? He works as exec for NAB of course! And what has ASIC concluded after the flood of complaints?  What has ASIC done re the banks that approved loans for MC victims? This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it....

Gladys found this cracker.  ASIC suggesting that any loans pre 1 Jan 2011 was irresponsible lending.  Well yes we agree, but ASIC trying to negate what parliament told ASIC to do about this problem in 2001 when they had powers under ASIC Act "unconscionable conduct."  This is a law, regulation that ASIC Has sat on for 13 years and did not take action against any LENDER.  None............................ http://www.theadviser.com.au/breaking-news/8432-asic-cracks-down-on-acl-practices 14 March 2013  Staff Reporter Jessica Darnbrough The industry watchdog is calling on all Australian Credit Licensees (ACLs) to implement better practices to ensure they comply with national responsible lending laws.  Yesterday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) revealed the findings of its recent review of credit licensees in a new report.  According to the report – a review of licensed credit assistance providers’ monitoring and supervision of credit representatives – ACL holders must have the “appropriate practices in place to undertake compliance reviews of their credit...

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Corporations_and_Financial_Services/asic/asic052/~/media/Committees/Senate/committee/corporations_ctte/asic/asic_05_2/e04.ashx In late 2004 and early 2005, ASIC undertook a surveillance looking at whether advisers were complying with their obligations to disclose, in the Statement of Advice (SOA) given to clients, the costs, possible loss of benefits and other significant consequences of following advice to switch super funds.  During this surveillance, ASIC uncovered some cases where the interests of clients were harmed by poor advice. PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT The purpose of this report is twofold: •  to explain the methodology behind the surveillance; and •  to illustrate the results of the surveillance in simple language. PROJECT METHODOLOGY ASIC started surveillance on superannuation switching advice in December 2004 to assess how financial advisers were, at that time, complying with new legal obligations relating to advice to switch superannuation products. ASIC’s surveillance sample included 19 AFS licensees and 93 representatives of those licensees. Initially, ASIC reviewed 101 client files in which personal...

Dear members As of this morning Tony Abbot has accepted an invitation to debate with Kevin Rudd, he wants the first debate to be held at the Canberra Press Club and the next two as open public forums. As David Speers will be the adjudicator and Foxtel will be broadcasting nationally I've taken the opportunity to check out the Sky news website. On the site are a lot of little sub sections but one caught my eye and so I clicked, this section is called "your say" so I thought why not. They ask for your name, email address and town or city location but then you get a small space to put your comment in, if you prefer you can ring 1300 32 88 80 to make a comment. I requested for David Speers to ask both leaders why they both won't address the problems of the thousands of Australians...

YOUR SUBMISSION TO THE SENATE INQUIRY is vital.  If you ignore this Inquiry there will be no reason to hold a Royal Commission into the Banking Sector.  Then the banks will move in with a united rush! Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. “YES SENT Submission” in address bar and email to us.  We are counting heads. Rate ASIC’s Performance on what if they had investigated all those cases they did receive and as a result ASIC gave public warnings – would you have been aware of the dangers and not fallen into the mess you are all in right now?  Senators want to know how you feel about that. Eg:  If you were travelling on a highway and the bridge had collapsed and there was no warning “Bridge Collapse – STOP IMMEDIATELY “ and you continued around the bend and over the cliff into 200m ravine…..would your family be upset? If Government KNEW...

ASIC is suggesting yes there were sub prime loans prior to 1 July 2010.  In fact our regulatory gurus advised Government in 2007, "Houston..... we have a bit of a problem here with Full Docs and Low Docs."   Parliament responded with a raft of changes to laws and gazetted the new NCCP laws in 1 July 2009. BUT for the hapless borrowers in circa July 2009 to June 2010.....ASIC decided to give the Banks a little moratorium on prosecuting Banksters and permitted the Low Doc Scam to continue until 1 July 2010. ASIC has not a clue how to deal with consumer protection.  It only knows how to protect rackets run by Banks, including the four majors.  ASIC told the banks: "we will give you a bit of a holiday to continue to write loans, but just try and clean up the dodgy paperwork during the coming 1`2 months, or...

ASIC admitted it accidentally blocked 250,000 websites after trying to go after a single domain. Big whoops. Source: Sun Herald Claire Porter  6th June 2013 PRIVACY and civil rights groups are calling for an open investigation into how government departments are interpreting a 15-year-old law to block websites. The calls come after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) admitted it had accidentally blocked 250,000 websites on top of the 1200 it had already accidentally censored last month. Jon Lawrence, spokesperson for Electronic Frontiers Australia told news.com.au that ASIC should be required to provide a judicial warrant before attempting to block a single website. The organisation said it planned to contact Senator Conroy and insist he "conduct a full-fledged investigation into the second stuff-up in as many months". He said the public should be informed of the decision before any move is made to block a website. "We're very concerned about...