ASIC annual report highlights enforcement gains and consumer repayments in Australia

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Highlights

ASIC secures court orders for civil penalties of $830 million and enables over $580 million in repayments and refunds to consumers and investors in 2025-26.
ASIC imposes combined penalties of $250 million against ANZ for misconduct, assists 4,000 consumers with $421 million in repayments from Macquarie and Netwealth, and removes over 19,400 scam websites.
ASIC targets executive accountability at The Star Entertainment Group, initiates an inquiry into ASX Group governance, and sets new standards for private credit fund risk management and disclosure.

2025-26 enforcement and regulatory outcomes

As reported by ASIC, the regulator's annual report for 2025-26 shows it secured court orders for civil penalties of $830 million while helping to secure more than $580 million in repayments and refunds for consumers and investors. ASIC Chair Sarah Court says the outcome reflects the agency's enforcement and regulatory work, with a focus on addressing misconduct and delivering results for consumers, investors and the market.

During the year, ASIC commences 260 formal investigations, launches 32 civil proceedings involving 65 defendants and completes 1,012 surveillances. The regulator also says banks commit more than $160 million in refunds for customers facing financial hardship and low-income customers, while more than 810,000 customers move to low-fee accounts.

ASIC also points to combined penalties of $250 million against ANZ for misconduct across its retail banking, institutional and markets operations. It says it removes more than 19,400 investment scam and phishing websites, along with related scam advertisements on social media.

Sector risks and market confidence

Among the year's larger interventions, ASIC takes enforcement and regulatory action linked to the Shield and First Guardian collapses, with 15 Federal Court proceedings commenced against 30 defendants. Around 4,000 consumers also receive about $421 million in repayments following court-enforceable undertakings with Macquarie and Netwealth.

The regulator says it pursues executive accountability through proceedings against 11 former executives and directors of The Star Entertainment Group Ltd. It also drives remediation in the contracts for difference sector and secures a court order for a record $300.2 million penalty against Union Standard International Group Pty Ltd and two former corporate authorised representatives.

ASIC says it is acting to protect confidence in critical financial market infrastructure through its inquiry into ASX Group's governance, capability and risk management. It also takes action against market participants with inadequate cyber security protection, calls for urgent improvements in risk management amid the spread of frontier AI, and sets clearer expectations for private credit funds across disclosure, governance, conflicts, valuation, liquidity and credit risk management.

Sarah Court says ASIC will continue to build on the agency's progress and respond to new and emerging risks. The regulator also says it advances regulatory simplification by removing more than 9,000 pages of legacy web content, updating more than 280 form landing pages and simplifying more than 180 pages of regulatory guidance, while more than 97% of previously paper-only forms can now be lodged by email.

Our earlier report on banks’ bare metal recovery planning highlighted how regulators are pushing lenders to build deeper cyber resilience as AI increases the scale and complexity of attacks. We noted that supervisors want end-to-end recovery options for critical services, not just perimeter defenses, to protect financial stability if core systems are compromised.

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