A speech by Jillian Segal, Deputy Chair, ASIC, to the Financial Services Consumer Conference, Sydney, 9 November 2000.
Thank you for inviting me to talk with you this morning about ASIC's views on Codes.
I must say it is a most timely conference. Within ASIC we have also been doing a great deal of thinking about the role of Codes of Conduct in the post Financial Services Reform Bill context. The present reviews of the payments system Codes make such thinking unavoidable.
Since it is rare, however, that I get the opportunity to talk to this many financial services consumer advocates at one time, I thought I would first spend some of my time this morning filling you in on what ASIC has been doing more generally. Then I will get into the detail of where our Code thinking has been leading us.
As most of you no doubt know, ASIC has now had responsibility for consumer protection in the non-credit related areas of financial services for a little over two years. (We are likely to also have TPA type credit responsibilities once the FSR legislation is through). In that time, we have been extremely active. This activity can perhaps be best understood if it is seen as occurring in two stages.