INVESTING STRATEGY
Effect of ASIC ruling on online financial discussions
What are everyone’s thoughts on ASICs recent ruling around online financial discussions (https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/financial-services/giving-financial-product-advice/discussing-financial-products-and-services-online/)? Could it extend to this type of forum or handing out our Pearler referral code? Having gotten into investing later in life than I’d (in hindsight) would prefer to have, the wealth of information out there now has been a massive help. I don’t feel like it existed years ago outside big financial/investment institutions or published works such as “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. While I’m sure some of the discussions on the internet today are influenced by referrals or other biased ideas, at least the conversations are (were) being freely had.
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Hey Stuart,
This is a really important topic, would love to hear the community’s thoughts but just wanted to share some thoughts the Pearler team bringing together for an upcomming blog to get the ball rolling. I’ve split this up into a few posts below.
- Who are the new guidelines aimed at?
We think scanning the guidlines for key words and then asking yourself if they relate to you is a helpful step. Here’s a few we picked up on:
Social media influencers «This information sheet (INFO 269) is for social media influencers who discuss financial products and services online». Whilst there may be some grey area for some people, you should be able to figure out with some confidence if it relates to you. It’s probably helpful to also ask yourself «will my friend see me as an influencer»…
Carrying on a Business? «Carrying on a financial services business without an AFS licence is an offence». Again, this one should be pretty straight forward. There is probably an edge case here that I can’t leave out: Let’s say you are a professional adviser casually helping your friends – this sounds like one of those cases you’d see on Today-Tonight (is that show still running?) where a friend sues another friend for something they mentioned over beers. If you are a professional, let’s just assume you have a legal department you can check with.
Balanced «your content is accurate and balanced». So when chatting with friends ‘accurate and balanced’ might seem not to fit. Perhaps ask yourself, am I being honest?
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