On 10 April 2025, ASIC announced its plan to publish reportable situations (RS) and internal dispute resolution (IDR) data in the second half of this year.
Background
Under the RS regime, financial services and credit licensees are required to report certain matters to ASIC (known as reportable situations), including breaches and likely significant breaches of core obligations, investigations into potential breaches and occurrences of serious fraud or gross negligence. ASIC is required to publish information about certain RS reports submitted by licensees each financial year, as well as information about the licensees that have submitted these reports.
Under the IDR regime, financial firms are required to have an IDR procedure that complies with the standards and requirements made or approved by ASIC. Financial firms must record all complaints received through their IDR processes and are also required to report their IDR data to ASIC in a standardised manner every six months. ASIC has the power to publish this data.
ASIC states that publication of firm-level RS and IDR data supports the key objectives of the RS and IDR regimes to enhance accountability and transparency in relation to complaints handling and identification and management of breaches, providing firms with an incentive for improved behaviour.
ASIC proposals
Consultation Paper 383 Reportable situations and internal dispute resolution data publication (CP 383) outlines ASIC's proposals, including the following:
Topic | Proposal(s) | Rationale | |
How the data will be presented and contextualised | ASIC proposes to publish RS and IDR data in two separate interactive dashboards that will allow users to search and filter the data. Consumers will be able to access these dashboards and look up this information. A glossary with definitions, explanatory notes and contextual statements will be provided to assist users in understanding and interpreting the data. Some of the data may be available for download. ASIC may consider whether additional features could be implemented in the future to support the use of the interactive dashboards and the interpretation of the data (such as information to classify the size and sector of firms). | To make complex data accessible and actionable for users, driving informed decision-making and improving transparency. | |
The scope of the data publication | ASIC proposes to publish firm-level and industry-level data for RS and IDR reports submitted to ASIC. Data will be aggregated at these two levels, allowing users to view the data for all reporting firms (industry-level) and to drill down to view data for each individual firm (firm-level). The dashboards will include the names, licence numbers and submitted data of all corporate licensees that have reported RS and IDR data to ASIC. Individual licensees will not be named. The RS data publication will include data about RS reports submitted to ASIC (and with APRA under dual reporting arrangements) about significant and likely significant breaches of core obligations. Other types of RS reports (such as reports of serious fraud and gross negligence) will be excluded from publication. The IDR data publication will include all IDR data submissions, including reports declaring no complaints in a reporting period. The dashboards will not include data relating to firms that have not submitted any RS or IDR reports to ASIC or have only submitted RS reports that are excluded from publication. | To support the key objectives of the RS and IDR regimes, including to enhance accountability and transparency in relation to complaints handling and the identification and management of breaches. | |
The data elements to be published | For RS data, ASIC proposes to publish a subset of the data elements it obtains from the prescribed form that licensees complete in the ASIC Regulatory Portal to lodge an RS report with ASIC. This includes data elements relating to:
For IDR data, ASIC proposes to publish all the data elements collected from IDR data reported to ASIC except the complaint unique identifier and free-text fields. This includes data elements relating to:
| To enhance accountability of firms and help users identify where substantial numbers of significant breaches and IDR complaints are occurring. |
At this stage, ASIC is anticipating the initial data publication will be between September and December this year. For RS data, the 2025 publication will include data about RS reports (and updates to those reports) submitted in the 2024–25 financial year. For IDR data, the 2025 publication will include data for the 2023–24 and 2024–25 financial years. This means that consumers will be able to look up RS and IDR data that has already been reported to ASIC in these periods.
What should you do?
We strongly encourage licensees to review the RS and IDR data elements ASIC is proposing to publish and provide feedback on the proposals in CP 383, including whether there are any reasons why these data elements should not be published or any other data elements that should be published.
Comments on the proposals are due to ASIC by 14 May 2025.