ASIC today announced its enforcement priorities for 2025, capturing the key areas where it will direct resources and expertise in the coming year.
ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said, ‘Our 2025 enforcement priorities reflect the increased risks consumers are facing that are being driven by cost of living pressures. These priorities are about protecting Australians from financial harm and targeting the people who try to take advantage of them.
‘We will focus on business models that are designed to avoid consumer credit protections, and we will take action against those engaging in unlawful debt management and collection. We will also target conduct that exploits superannuation savings, with a particular focus on unscrupulous property investment schemes.
‘ASIC will continue to fiercely uphold the integrity of Australia’s financial markets, and to support this, we have established a new dedicated team to target insider trading.’
In 2025, ASIC’s enforcement priorities will focus on:
Misconduct exploiting superannuation savings
Unscrupulous property investment schemes
Failures by insurers to deal fairly and in good faith with customers
Strengthening investigation and prosecution of insider trading
Business models designed to avoid consumer credit protections
Misconduct impacting small businesses and their creditors
Debt management and collection misconduct
Licensee failures to have adequate cyber-security protections
Greenwashing and misleading conduct involving ESG claims
Member services failures in the superannuation sector
Auditor misconduct
Used car finance sold to vulnerable consumers by finance providers
Last year, ASIC increased its new investigations by 25% on the previous year. ASIC also increased new civil proceedings by 23% and had important enforcement outcomes across areas from greenwashing to crypto, predatory lending, high-cost credit and insider trading.
‘We have more matters before criminal courts around the country than we do before civil courts, and it requires intensive efforts by ASIC investigators to continue each of those cases.
‘However, numbers only tell one part of the story. Numbers don’t capture the full impact of the enforcement actions filed including the resulting compliance and deterrence we achieve, particularly in relation to consumer and investor protections and changing industry behaviour,’ Ms Court said.
ASIC’s enforcement priorities reflect emerging issues and risks the agency prioritises to detect, investigate and prosecute unlawful conduct affecting consumers, businesses and the economy.
While ASIC’s strategic targets change from year to year, in keeping with shifting economic factors and the volatile risk environment, its enduring priorities remain the same.
ASIC’s enduring priorities target:
Misconduct damaging market integrity including insider trading, continuous disclosure breaches and market manipulation
Misconduct impacting First Nations people
Misconduct involving a high risk of significant consumer harm
particularly conduct targeting financially vulnerable consumers
Systemic compliance failures by large financial institutions
resulting in widespread consumer harm
New or emerging conduct risks within the financial system
Governance and directors’ duties failures
