NAB-owned WealthHub cops $1m ASIC fine

NAB-owned online broker WealthHub Securities has been hit with a $1.055 million penalty after ASIC found it failed to accurately report regulatory data more than 9.5 million times over a decade.

ASIC said he reporting failures undermined the corporate regulator's market surveillance capabilities.

The Markets Disciplinary Panel (MDP) found WealthHub breached its obligations between 28 July 2014 to 31 October 2024 by failing to provide complete and accurate regulatory data and by not maintaining adequate organisational and technical resources to meet its reporting requirements.

Central to the breaches were repeated failures to correctly report Intermediary ID, which is the Australian financial services licence number used to identify the entity responsible for placing orders and trades through a market participant's trading system.

ASIC said the information is critical to monitoring trading activity, detecting misconduct such as insider trading and market manipulation, and calculating industry funding levies.

The MDP found WealthHub repeatedly omitted the Intermediary ID from orders and trade reports submitted to market operators, including the ASX, while in other instances it reported incorrect identifiers.

It also found the broker lacked the system expertise and oversight needed to ensure reporting obligations were met.

"The MDP was concerned that WealthHub lacked the capacity and capability to identify and remediate breaches in a timely and effective manner, missed multiple opportunities to address the root cause of the reporting failures, failed to take adequate corrective action and did not lodge a reportable situation report to ASIC until January 2023," ASIC said.

The panel further stressed market participants are responsible for regularly reviewing their technology systems and ensuring they have staff with the expertise to identify and resolve report deficiencies.

WealthHub, a wholly owned subsidiary of NAB, provides execution, clearing and settlement services through nabtrade and JBWere, and is a trading participant on both ASX and Cboe markets.

The broker has paid the infringement notice. ASIC noted payment of the penalty does not constitute an admission of guilt or liability under the Corporations Act.