Welcome to the latest issue of the KHQ Super Alert. This week, APRA issued a new set of FAQs on the Your Future, Your Super performance test, while ASIC issued an information sheet relating to how trustees can avoid engaging in ‘greenwashing’ when promoting financial products.
APRA – New set of FAQs issued for the Your Future, Your Super performance test
On 15 June 2022, APRA issued a new set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) to provide further guidance to RSEs ‘on the measures included in the Government’s Your Future, Your Super (YFYS) reform package’. The questions covered by the FAQs include:
- ‘Will APRA use data submitted after 15 August for the performance test?
- When will RSE licensees be notified of their annual performance test results?
- Can new beneficiaries hold a product that fails the performance test for a second consecutive year?
- Will APRA combine (or “stitch”) history in the performance test where APRA has granted a new MySuper product authorisation on the basis of material goodwill?’
Click here for details.
ASIC – Guidance to avoid ‘greenwashing’ when promoting financial products
On 14 June 2022, ASIC issued a media release advising that it had released Information Sheet 271 How to avoid greenwashing when offering or promoting sustainability-related products (INFO 271). ASIC considers ‘greenwashing’ as ‘the practice of misrepresenting the extent to which a financial product or investment strategy is environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical’.
ASIC Deputy Chair Karen Chester explained that INFO 271 ‘is simply about helping issuers comply with their existing regulatory obligations. Labels or headline statements should not be misleading. Being ‘true to label’ is not a nice-to-have, it’s a regulatory must-have’.
Click here for details.
ASIC – Legislative instruments providing relief on PDSs, superannuation dashboards and FSGs remade
On 14 June 2022, ASIC issued a media release to advise that it had ‘remade and combined seven legislative instruments relating to specific financial services disclosure requirements’. According to ASIC, these instruments ‘were generally due to automatically repeal or cease in the next two years if not remade’, so the relief has been remade in the following instruments:
- ‘ASIC Corporations (In-use Notices for Employer-sponsored Superannuation and Superannuation Dashboards) Instrument 2022/496,which provides relief in relation to Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) in-use notices for employer-sponsored superannuation and choice product dashboard disclosure;
- ASIC Corporations (Shorter PDS and Delivery of Accessible Financial Products Disclosure by Platform Operators and Superannuation Trustees) Instrument 2022/497, which provides relief in relation to shorter PDSs and PDS obligations for superannuation trustees, IDPS operators and responsible entities of IDPS-like schemes;
- ASIC Corporations (Financial Services Guide Given in a Time Critical Situation) Instrument 2022/498, which provides relief in relation to the giving of Financial Services Guides in time critical situations.’
Click here for details.
ASIC – Article in relation to cyber security published
On 10 June 2022, ASIC published an article titled Cyber safety a company culture matter. The article reminds businesses that they ‘must be ready to respond when their operations are threatened by online criminals’.
ASIC noted that earlier this year, the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2022 had listed ‘failure of cyber security measures’ as ‘the number one risk for Australian executives, even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resultant increase in global instability’. ASIC explained that while it is ‘not seeking to prescribe technical standards or to provide expert guidance on cyber security’, it ‘may consider enforcement action to drive changes in behaviour’ where it ‘considers a firm has not met its cyber risk management obligations’.
Click here for details.
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