For financial services firms, retaining a full AML identity pack became operational muscle memory: passport and driver licence scans, certification pages and verification artefacts stored across onboarding tools, CRMs, document repositories and outsourced platforms. OAIC acknowledges that some Tranche 1 entities and their agents have longstanding systems and practices built around copied ID documents. For new collections, that legacy position is now much harder to defend. What changed From 31...

AUSTRAC’s message to wealth management is unusually direct. In April 2026, the regulator said 98% of wealth-management businesses lodged no suspicious matter reports in 2025, while just three businesses accounted for nearly two-thirds of all SMRs across the sector. It also pointed to earlier compliance-report data showing 92% of wealth-management businesses said they had no high-risk customers. AUSTRAC’s supervisory view is that this does not reflect a genuinely low-risk sector. It reflects a...

Lead Generation in Financial Advice is Now an AFSL Governance Issue The market is talking about marketers. Treasury and ASIC are looking at something broader: the full distribution chain from ad, landing page and data capture, through referral, advice interaction and ultimately the product recommendation or superannuation switch. Treasury’s April 2026 paper expressly frames lead generation as the start of a chain that can run through advertising, data broking, financial advice, super...