ASIC chair Joe Longo hits back at split demand, calls for more resources

The boss of the corporate regulator says it needs more resources to do what’s asked of it, and says calls to split it into investigative and enforcement agencies are not warranted.

ASIC chair Joe Longo. Picture: NewsWire / Josie Hayden

Australia’s top corporate regulator has rejected calls for the enforcement agency to be split, warning recent criticism failed to make the case for major change.

Speaking in an internal podcast, Australian Securities & Investments Commission chair Joe Longo said ASIC “can’t solve every problem”, cautioning the investigative and enforcement agency was “going to attract some criticism from time to time”.

The comments come after a Senate economics committee report took aim at ASIC over its enforcement record, with Liberal senator Andrew Bragg warning the regulator was failing to catch and stop corporate crooks. The report called for ASIC to be split into two agencies, one to tackle financial regulation and another to handle broader matters relating to companies and the corporate ­sector.

But speaking on an ASIC podcast, Mr Longo said the argument to split the agency was a “long way” from being made.

“The idea, for example, that there should be an entity that just does court cases, that just does enforcement, and the regulatory work is done by ASIC, I think has no merit to it at all,” he said.

“The inefficiency of one entity doing the investigating and another entity actually doing the court cases, I just don’t see any merit in that.”

The ASIC chair has previously declined to discuss the Senate ­report.

Mr Longo said ASIC was “the most accountable regulator in the country”.

ASIC forms one of the two key pillars of regulating the financial system, alongside The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, known as the “twin peaks” model.

Mr Longo said that system “has served us well”, noting Australia did not need more regulators given the current system had “a lot of benefits”.

“Now, that doesn’t mean there may not be aspects of our jurisdiction that may change. So I think there’s a scale issue here, which I think is in the public interest,” he said. “The twin peaks model works very well. Whether we want to tweak it here and there in terms of particular aspects of our jurisdiction, that’s always on the table.”

Mr Longo also addressed ASIC’s resourcing, noting the regulator had a finite budget.

“Our resources are limited and so we spend a lot of time thinking about where to put them,” he said, “because what’s at the heart of what ASIC does is choosing the right problems and issues to deal with.”

Mr Longo said ASIC was “realistic” about its funding, and if the agency’s funding remained “stagnant” while expectations for what it should do increased “then we all know where that’s going to end up”.

“If we want more individuals or entities held criminally accountable, then we’re going to need more resources,” he said.

But Mr Longo said ASIC “can’t address every issue”.

“So it’s very important we focus on the right ones,” he said.

ASIC recently announced it would be targeting private markets and private credit.

Mr Longo said ASIC was also interested in matters relating to vulnerable consumers.

He said the regulator was getting ready for the introduction of climate risk disclosures from corporate Australia, alongside the growing superannuation sector.

“Within the next 10 years, we’re likely to get $5 or $6 trillion under management,” Mr Longo said. “That’s going to have a profound impact, and is already having a profound impact on the economy. So we need to know what’s going on there.”

The career regulator, who served as enforcement national director at ASIC from 1996 to 2001, has pushed through a number of changes at the agency since taking on the chair in 2021.

The agency has faced a painful restructure, along with the departure of several key figures.

Mr Longo’s term as chair concludes in 2026.

Originally published as ASIC chair Joe Longo hits back at split demand, calls for more resources