Australia’s corporate regulator has warned financial-advice licensees that weak control of lead generators can put their licences at risk, after a review found unlicensed or unqualified marketers taking part in work that belongs to authorised advisers.
ASIC’s Report 845, released on Monday, examined 15 Australian financial services licensees and their representatives. The regulator found examples of lead generators conducting fact-finding, assessing clients’ risk profiles and discussing advice recommendations. It also identified potentially misleading claims, fear-based sales messages and comparisons that were not made on a like-for-like basis.
The review covered supervision and monitoring between January 2025 and June 2026. During that period, lead generators referred 7,639 new clients to advisers at the firms examined, 35 per cent of their new clients. More than A$678 million was switched or invested, about 90 per cent from superannuation savings. Advice businesses received A$9.8 million in initial fees and commitments for a further A$4.5 million in ongoing fees.
ASIC said some licensees had limited access to call recordings, relied heavily on manual supervision, inadequately monitored recommendation patterns and failed to control adviser client volumes. Those are review findings, not findings of liability against every firm examined. The report does not identify every firm or assign the same deficiency to each one.
The regulator said it will continue to use existing law where it finds evidence of serious consumer harm. Licensees remain responsible for ensuring that only authorised advisers give personal advice and that advisers act in clients’ best interests, even where an outside business supplied the lead.
ASIC Report 845 and official materials
