Treasury consults to improve data visibility into MISs

Treasury has opened a consultation for managed investment schemes (MISs) to provide more data to help identify emerging risks earlier.

The collapse of Shield and First Guardian highlighted gaps in regulators' visibility of the sector, which costed Australians $1 billion of their retirement savings.

In the consultation, Treasury proposes to improve regulatory environment through three steps: improving baseline regulatory visibility of registered MISs through enhanced registration data; enhancing regulatory visibility of the registered MIS sector through recurrent data collection; and collecting limited and targeted data on the unregistered MIS sector.

MIS sector is large and growing with $2.9 trillion in assets under management according to the latest available data, while current data collections capture only around 47% of the registered MIS sector.

"MISs play an important role in Australia's financial system, helping Australians invest for their futures and supporting investment across the economy. The sector now comprises thousands of schemes and around $3 trillion invested in registered and unregistered MISs," minster for financial services Daniel Mulino said.

"High-quality and timely data is critical to ensuring regulators can identify emerging risks, support investor confidence and help maintain the integrity of Australia's financial markets. The consultation paper seeks feedback on proposals to address data gaps that have emerged as the sector has grown and evolved."

Treasury noted existing reporting arrangements provide ASIC with limited visibility of the registered MIS sector.

"Beyond information collected at the point of MIS registration, ASIC's visibility is largely reliant on annual financial reporting, which is retrospective in nature and does not provide sufficiently timely information to support proactive, risk-based supervision or early intervention," Treasury said.

Treasury also added improved visibility is important to get insights on private market investment strategies, including private credit, which are often operated through MIS structures.

"Better data would support regulators in understanding the scale, leverage, liquidity characteristics and interconnectedness of these activities, helping identify emerging risks and vulnerabilities at an earlier stage," Treasury said.

The government acknowledged changing the data collection requirements for MISs could pose an increased regulatory burden for industry. To tackle this, all the data collection requirement will ensure minimum compliance burden for industry and implementation costs for government.

"This consultation is focused on addressing immediate and demonstrated data gaps that limit regulatory visibility, with a view to supporting more effective supervision and reducing the risk of consumer harm," Mulino said.

The consultation builds on the Government's 2026-27 budget investment of $10.3 million in ASIC's data capabilities and reflects the importance of ensuring regulators have access to fit-for-purpose information to support effective oversight.

The consultation submissions close on October 23.