Reactionary finance industry, survey finds

A survey has found that the wealth sector is reactive rather than proactive when it comes to regulatory change.

In early 2022, Deloitte sent a survey to 18 organisations across various finance sectors from superannuation to wealth management. The results show the industry has an awareness of regulatory change, which increases the risks of non-compliance when these changes are not prioritised.

Most of the money spent on regulatory change was due to the outcomes of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in Financial Services.

Wealth and superannuation professionals tend to rely on industry bodies (67 per cent), while a third said it depended on the nature of the regulation. Most of these sectors, Deloitte said, did not have their own separate regulatory affairs team, thus relied heavily on industry associations to advocate on their behalf. Problematically, there are 13 separate industry associations. Four years ago there were 30,000 advisers, whereas now there are 17,000, but the number of associations has not declined.