ASIC has announced that Macquarie Equities Limited (MEL) is writing to current and former clients about possible remediation for flawed financial advice.
The advice was provided by MEL’s financial adviser network, Macquarie Private Wealth (MPW).
This remediation process is part of ASIC’s enforceable undertaking with MEL, which was imposed in January 2013. The EU was the result of ASIC surveillance of MPW which identified concerns about MPW’s compliance processes and its risk framework.
A key aspect of ASIC’s concerns with MPW’s operations was that Macquarie had identified a range of compliance problems within its business, but not reported them to ASIC.
MEL will send out more than 160,000 letters to its clients, inviting them to raise concerns about the quality of advice. The letters will be sent to all people who have been clients at any time since MEL obtained its AFSL on 1 March 2004.
Macquarie was discussed in the Senate Economics References Committee Report on the Performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
In Chapter 13 on Internal Control Systems the committee recommended:
Recommendation 11
13.36 In light of the Commonwealth Financial Planning matter, the committee recommends that ASIC undertakes intensive surveillance of other financial advice businesses that have recently been a source of concern, such as Macquarie Private Wealth, to ensure that ASIC’s previous concerns are being addressed and that there are no other compliance deficiencies. ASIC should make the findings of its surveillance public and, in due course, provide a report to this committee.
