ASIC will become “easier to deal with and harder to avoid” under the leadership of new chair Sarah Court, who will on Wednesday tell the Centre for Economic Development of Australia that the regulator will act “at the right time” and address “the right risks” to build a more productive economy in an uncertain world.

“Becoming easier to deal with and harder to avoid comes down to three pillars: being more responsive, investing in earlier detection and prevention, and setting clear expectations, with targeted interventions and stronger consequences,” Court will say, according to extracts of her speech seen by Investment Magazine.

To do that, ASIC has set five new strategic priorities for the year as part of its 2026-27 corporate plan.

The corporate regulator is “looking for risks to retirement savings earlier and supporting better retirement outcomes and superannuation member services”, the plan says, alongside setting clear expectations to improve outcomes for consumers and small business and delivering “stronger consequences for breaches of professional conduct and better access to reliable financial and business information”.

The remaining priorities cover effective, resilient and innovative operations across financial services and markets, and “strengthening integrity, transparency, and confidence across Australia’s public and private markets to ensure Australia remains an attractive place to invest and do business”.

“We are in one of the most disrupted decades our country and the world has experienced,” Court will say.

“In uncertain times like these – and when the economy is under pressure – the debate inevitably turns to the role of regulation. 

Court will say that while she has “some sympathy” for observations that regulation prevents business from innovating and improving productivity, and that it is difficult to conclude that some regulations have a “material public benefit sufficient to outweigh their regulatory cost”, increased pressures “only serve to highlight the importance of ASIC’s role in regulation and enforcement”.

“A regulator that can provide confidence to those who are doing, or trying to do, the right thing, while providing consequences to those who are not,” Court will say. ”A regulator in other words who is easier to deal with, and harder to avoid.” 

“That’s the kind of regulator that ASIC needs to be to help build a more productive economy in a more uncertain world.”

Private markets, public losses

As part of its corporate plan, ASIC will continue to monitor the industry’s progress since the implementation of the retirement income covenant, noting an estimated 2.5 million Australians are expected to transition into retirement over the next decade, and will complete its review of how trustees use complaints data to identify systemic issues.

ASIC will also undertake a targeted review of trustees’ oversight of advice fee deductions, testing whether practices have improved since Report 833, which found gaps in the monitoring of harmful advice fee deductions, unusual fee and investment patterns and high-risk switching across six platform trustees holding more than $300 billion.

The corporate regulator will also conduct surveillances of wholesale private equity valuation practices and of wholesale private credit liquidity and credit risk management, and will review transactions to assess the protection of confidential information. Surveillance of private credit fund distribution to retail clients through direct and advised channels continues.

The regulator will monitor market-wide risks across public and private markets to identify emerging stress, excess leverage and risk taking, and will review the preparedness of wholesale market intermediaries for market shocks, with a focus on margining, collateral, valuations and trading conduct risks, and will review controls over error and suspense accounts.