Compliance Corner - AxiomSL, ASIC

Editorial Staff

29 June 2018

AxiomSL
Regulatory reporting business AxiomSL, which has teamed up with a raft of banks and other large financial bodies to set out a new framework on how firms show authorities in Singapore they comply with rules, has completed this project.

The firm said it has finished the launch of what is called the MAS 610/1003 Open Taxonomy project, an industry initiative to make it easier for firms to follow rules laid down by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The project condenses more than 300,000 data points of the MAS 610 into 1,000 reusable business concepts, making it easier for firms to understand requests from regulators.

With the weight of regulatory rules rising continually, ways to ease the burden as much as possible are increasingly sought after, not least by financial centres looking to attract new business from rival IFCs.
AxiomSL worked with large domestic and international financial institutions, as well as PricewaterhouseCoopers and BR-AG.

“This is a milestone as it significantly reduces the burden of reporting for FIs regardless of the reporting platform they use. We are very grateful to MAS, our partners and the nine initial participating banks for their support in enabling such an extensive project to be completed within five months,” Peter Tierney, chief executive for Asia-Pacific, AxiomSL, said.

ASIC
ASIC has banned financial advisor Graeme Cowper from providing financial services for four years. This comes after an ASIC investigation found he was not adequately trained or competent to provide financial services.

Between 2007 and 2015, Cowper worked as a financial advisor at National Australia Bank, AON and Tynan Mackenzie while based in Sydney. He then transferred to Ipac Securities, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AMP.

Cowper was banned from providing financial services after the Panel found that:

- He had a fundamental lack of understanding of the duties and obligations imposed by the Corporations Act 2001 on providers of financial services; and
- He gave advice to a number of clients over the period 2007 to 2013 that did not appear to be appropriate.

The banning will appear on ASIC’s Banned and Disqualified Persons Register and be reflected on ASIC’s Financial Advisors Register. Cowper has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC's decision.