Additional guidance for the ASIC challenge

What follows below are links to key regulatory references and specific guidance relating to disclosures:

• Corporations Act 2001
  • Chapter 2M of the Corporations Act 2001
  • Chapter 6CA of the Corporations Act 2001
  • Sections 769C, 1041E, 1041F, 1041H, 1308 and 1309
• Australian Accounting Standards Board
• Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001
  • Sections 12DA and 12BB of the ASIC Act 2001
• ASX Listing Rules Chapter 3 -Continuous disclosure
• ASX Listing Rules Guidance Note 8 – Continuous disclosure
• ASIC Financial Reporting and Audit
• ASIC Preparers of Financial Reports
• Digital Financial Reports

Search our media releases

For examples of past regulatory disclosure and conduct matters, you may find it useful to search our previous media releases.

To assist you, you can find related media releases using our search function. Searching for continuous disclosure and financial reporting will provide some initial results

Frequently Asked Questions

ASIC provides some additional answers to common questions we have received recently from interested parties with the ASIC BRII regtech challenge:

Could you provide some guidance or suggestions in completing the BRII application form?

The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources leads the assessment process and selection of grant recipients. ASIC advises interested parties to contact brii@industry.gov.au with inquiries about filling out the form and the assessment procedure.

What sort of past information can applicants use? And how far back does the historical information need to go?

For this challenge, we encourage interested parties to consider all kinds of relevant datasets including historical information. For this purpose, ASIC does not suggest any boundaries of the usefulness of historical data. It is really for the interested party to consider.

What are some of the attributes or characteristics ASIC is looking for in the applications being submitted?

ASIC is open minded to seeing a wide variety and scope of solutions. Applicants could shine a light on something new that ought to be considered more deeply. One thing we would stress is the importance of high-quality leads when processing the data. High quality leads have a much higher likelihood of potential further inquiry by ASIC into the potential misconduct. It is intended the solutions would produce both effectiveness and efficiency benefits. We are not after a solution that essentially provides thousands of low-quality leads.  There is potential to engage with any publicly available data to provide meaningful insights.

For frequently asked questions about BRII, see the DISER page.

Below are responses to frequently asked questions related to the ASIC challenge.

Are there FSI partners who would assist applicants as a part of this initiative? Or is the solution to be based completely on available open source and ASIC data?

ASIC is open minded to who a regtech may partner with for this project, subject to pre-conditions of DISER BRII eligibility. ASIC will not be connecting potentially interested parties. Interested parties will need to rely on their existing networks to make business partner connections. On the question of data and software, again we remain open-minded. We do expect regtechs to consider analysing market announcement and financial reporting information, but beyond that we see potential for analysis of a wide range of other datasets. We do expect solutions to be cost effective, interoperable and secure and thus, this may have implications for the nature of software applications that are viable.

Access to ASX, Morning Star and/or Bloomberg datasets is very expensive. Will ASIC fund the costs of temporary licence access during the Feasibility Study period?

ASIC is open to work with regtech SMEs grantees on options to access relevant datasets including from Morningstar and Bloomberg. ASIC notes regtechs and their partners may already have their own arrangements in place, or are able to be put in place, for accessing relevant datasets (including subscriptions).

Can we see some cases of past poor disclosure from ASIC? That is, the public announcement of poor disclosure. Are there links to such cases?

ASIC suggests searching its webpage for media releases on actions in response to poor disclosure by listed companies – refer to the Search our media releases drop down above.

For example, searches on ASIC’s find a media release using the phrase ‘continuous disclosure’ brings up examples of some past matters. Further, searching for ‘financial reporting’ finds relevant publications on financial reporting compliance issues. ASIC’s find a media release webpage - https://asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/.

Regarding current ASIC IT infrastructure - will ASIC be able to provide this information to the applicants or only successful feasibility study recipients?

All of ASIC’s technology decisions are bound by the Protective Security Policy Framework and the Information Security Manual as set by the Australian Cyber Security Centre.  As an example these policies stipulate that data is to be stored in country.  Additionally ASIC has a multi-cloud strategy comprising of secure tenancies in M365, AWS and Azure.  For data management and analytics, ASIC uses an AWS based data lake and Databricks analytics environment.  Further information can be provided to successful feasibility study recipients.

Who in ASIC can potential applicants talk to?

The best way to contact us is to use the innovationhub@asic.gov.au email address.

Will ASIC assign specific liaison officer(s) to assist with applicants in the feasibility study stage with the requirements?

ASIC is putting together a team of subject matter experts to offer a range of details throughout the feasibility study stage. ASIC does not want to influence the direction of the solution, but we will point out pitfalls and hurdle we've experienced in the past. Our team of SMEs will also provide insights into technical and regulatory factors relevant to the solution.