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Australia, UK partner to procure well-regulated financial markets
|Following its inaugural meeting in September 2025, the second UK-Australia Joint Financial Regulatory Forum took place this week, with Australia remaining vocal about placing greater emphasis on governance and asset valuation of private markets.
Count takes 30% stake in Brisbane advice firm
|Count has agreed to acquire a 30% stake in Brisbane-based accounting and financial advice firm Apiary Financial, continuing its push to expand its equity partnership network while reporting stronger first-quarter earnings.
Audit quality continues to fall short: ASIC
|The corporate regulator has called for improvements in audit quality and financial reporting after its latest surveillance found companies, including superannuation funds, are still not getting the fundamentals right.
ETFs entering 3.0 era: JPMAM
JPMAM believes thematic ETFs may become a thing of the past as actively managed ETFs become more prevalent.
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Expert Feed
When geopolitics becomes a portfolio risk
Geopolitics is back - again - and Australian investors can no longer treat it as distant background noise.
Does association membership still matter?
With all the changes the advice sector has experienced in recent years, such as regulatory reform and increased education and professional standards ...
Digital assets and where they stand in 2026
So far in 2026 digital assets have captured the headlines largely for the wrong reasons, but that doesn't tell the full story.
Rethinking default design in a changing market environment
The evolution underway in the US DC system highlights the value of periodically reassessing default design assumptions.
Featured Profile
Jacqueline Fernley
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
ARC POINT OCIO PTY LTD
ARC POINT OCIO PTY LTD
Jacqueline Fernley is a self-confessed nerd, a market animal and as of this year, her own boss. Riddhima Talwani writes.
The Financial Standard podcast Tune in each week as we discuss the latest developments in Australia's wealth management industry. |  |
As an ex-employer nominated Board member of an industry fund, I was always impressed by the employee representatives on the Board (oh those terrible union officials) and their motives with regard to the Fund..
They considered the establishment of a retirement scheme for their working class members one of their greatest achievements and industrial issues never, by my observation, conflicted with their objective of maximising the retirement benefits for their members. Their philosophical problem was that they were making their socialist members capitalists by default. They were however always interested in an employer that was behind or defaulted in his payments, but so they should be.
Anyway, the proof will be in the future returns to members as industry funds beat the retail funds hands down currently, so we will see what happens. I think it must be all to do with Mr Abbott's inability to deal with trade unions and his determination to destroy the good work that they do in this area and also he wants to give the retail funds (and their profit margin) a leg up at every opportunity.
Has anyone ever heard of any fraud or misappropriation or any negative in the administration of an Australian industry fund that has made this change necessary?