Australia’s
financial watchdog has wrapped up the most lucrative enforcement period in its
history, extracting nearly $350 million in court-ordered civil penalties from
some of the country’s biggest financial institutions in the second half of last
year, while also clawing back more than half a billion dollars for ordinary
Australians caught up in misconduct schemes.
The
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said this week it
secured $349.8 million in civil penalties between July and December 2025, the
highest six-monthly total since the agency’s founding.
That figure
comes alongside $583 million in refunds and compensation payments flowing back
to consumers and investors, a combined outcome that Chairman Joe Longo called
evidence of a regulator that has fundamentally changed how it operates.
“Today,
ASIC is one of the most active law enforcement agencies in the country,”
Longo said. “We are taking more cases to court, achieving record
penalties, and protecting consumers.”
ANZ Pays the Biggest Price
No single
outcome defined the period more than the action against ANZ. In December, the
Federal Court ordered Australia and New Zealand Banking Group to
pay $250 million in combined penalties – the largest amount ASIC has ever
secured against one entity – for a pattern of misconduct that stretched from
bond market manipulation to charging fees to the accounts of dead customers.
Deputy
Chairwoman Sarah Court didn’t soften her message. “This outcome sends a
clear message to ANZ that it needs to do better by its customers and to all
banks that the cost of breaking the law is not an acceptable cost of doing
business.”
ANZ now
faces 11 civil penalty proceedings brought by ASIC since 2016. Cbus, NAB, and
RAMS Financial Group also faced significant penalties during the period – $23.5
million, $15.5 million, and $20 million, respectively – for failures ranging
from botched death benefit payments to home loan compliance gaps.
“Our Work Continues”
The
enforcement ramp-up is part of a multi-year pattern. ASIC secured
over $120 million in court-ordered penalties during the full 2024-25 fiscal
year and has
been steadily increasing the volume and scale of its actions.
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The
regulator granted 290
new Australian Financial Services licences in FY25 while pulling back 215 others – a pattern
that reflects a regulator tightening who gets to operate in the market, not
just punishing those who already are.
Longo
acknowledged that the pace won’t ease off. “While 2025 was a significant
year, our work continues in intensity in the year ahead.”
Shield and First Guardian:
$420 Million and Counting
Beyond the
headline bank penalties, ASIC’s two most complex ongoing investigations – into
the collapsed Shield
Master Fund and First Guardian Master Fund – produced some of the period’s
most consequential outcomes for ordinary investors.
Both
schemes funnelled Australians’ superannuation savings into managed investment
products that subsequently unravelled. By December, ASIC had secured more than
$420 million in compensation commitments for around 4,000 investors. Macquarie
admitted to contraventions of the Corporations Act and committed to paying $321
million to Shield investors, while Netwealth agreed to pay over $100 million to
more than 1,000 First Guardian investors.
FinanceMagnates.com previously
reported on the early stages of these collapses in June 2025, when ASIC first moved to
freeze assets across 31 connected entities as some 600 Australians stood to
lose $160 million in retirement savings.
Corporate Complaints Surge
A separate
dataset released Wednesday adds another dimension to the picture. Between July
and December 2025, ASIC received 9,686 reports of misconduct, raising 13,036
individual issues, a 28% jump from the first half of the year. The agency
attributed part of that increase to a redesigned reporting portal launched in
June that made lodging complaints easier.
Corporate
governance concerns accounted for 40% of all issues raised – up from 3,819 in
the previous period to 5,217 – driven by failures to hand company records to
liquidators, fraud allegations, and insolvency matters. Financial services and
retail investor issues made up another 44%.
Deputy
Chairwoman Court said the data reinforces where ASIC plans to focus. “They
underscore [ASIC’s enforcement priorities], which include tackling governance
and directors’ duties failures, reaffirming that stronger governance remains a
top priority for ASIC.”
Low-Income Customers Get
$161 Million Back
Separately,
ASIC’s “Better and Beyond” review of bank fee practices produced
another significant consumer outcome. Twenty-one banks agreed to refund $161
million to customers who had been stuck in high-fee accounts – a group
disproportionately made up of low-income earners. The Commonwealth Bank alone
committed to returning $68 million in December.
Commissioner
Alan Kirkland acknowledged progress but struck a cautious note: “Our
intervention has forced many banks to take action, but more needs to be done to
ensure financially vulnerable consumers are not put in this position
again.”
Several
banks also shifted more than one million customers into low-fee accounts, a
change ASIC estimates will save them a combined $50 million annually.
A 14-Year Prison Sentence
Sends a Message
On the
criminal side, the period’s most striking outcome was a 14-year prison sentence
handed to West Australian fraudster
Chris Marco by the Supreme Court of Western Australia – pending appeal, the
longest custodial sentence ever imposed in connection with an ASIC criminal
investigation. The regulator recorded 17 criminal convictions against
individuals across the period, a 31% increase from the prior six months.
Across all
enforcement categories, ASIC launched 123 new investigations, completed 518
surveillances, filed 23 new civil proceedings, and commenced 11 new criminal
prosecutions. Infringement notice penalties totalled $6.9 million.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
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