Regulator function
ASIC is Australia's integrated corporate, markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator.
It licences and monitors financial services businesses to ensure that they operate efficiently, honestly and fairly.
ASIC also assesses how effectively authorised financial markets are complying with their legal obligations to operate fair, orderly and transparent markets and supervises trading on Australia’s domestic licensed equity, derivatives and futures markets.
Specifically, under the ASIC Act, ASIC is to:
- maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of the financial system and entities in it;
- promote confident and informed participation by investors and consumers in the financial system;
- administer the law effectively and with minimal procedural requirements;
- receive, process and store, efficiently and quickly, information received;
- make information about companies and other bodies available to the public as soon as practicable; and
- take whatever action necessary to enforce and give effect to the law.
