Do you sense that today you would be able to access easily that information? And is that your aspiration in the future, without being specific about this particular company?

Yeah.

Look, the whole issue of, you know, private markets and private credit in particular is something we have been increasingly talking about.

So as the, um, private markets increase, as they have very significantly over recent years, we have a range of concerns that we've been really public about.

So, you know, there is a lack of opacity.

We don't know what's in them, we don't know who's lending to who.

Very hard for investors to see, you know, be- behind the, those corporate private veils.

That, to me, doesn't seem right for an organization as large as that.

I- if ASIC was doing its job, why this rebrand now?

Oh, look, I think it's not necessarily a rebrand, Sally.

It's, um, doing more of what, of what we're doing and really focusing in on it.

So if I sort of step back and look at our enforcement work in recent times, in, in the last financial year, it was our strongest enforcement record, on record.

So we had $830 million in penalties, and more importantly perhaps, we returned, you know, more than $600 million back to Australians.

So we wanna keep on with that work.

But at the same time, uh, as we've discussed before on your program, we are seeing people unfortunately being lured into, uh, poor investments.

I- is ASIC getting better at catching corporate crooks, or has the corporate environment become more crooked?

I spoke with her earlier today for Business Weekend.

Into the future, we are going to continue to be a strong regulator and a strong enforcement agency, and our real focus there is effectively on making sure that those big financial institutions are getting the basics right.

So we wanna keep making sure that interest rates are being paid properly, you know, death benefits are being paid on time, hardship applications are being dealt with.

That goes without saying and we're gonna continue that focus.

But one of the things that we've been hearing about is that people can find ASIC difficult to engage with, and we have a lot of information and people wanna get access to that information more readily.

So one of the big areas of concern that we've been hearing about is our registries.

So we have enormous amounts of data and intelligence that are contained in our registries.

Mm

...

I, you know, I hear so often that people are nervous, you know, they're missing out on some great new opportunity, some crypto investment or some digital asset, or all their friends are doing it and making money.

I, I, I think my, my number one plea to people would be there is no rush to invest.

So the biggest thing to look out for i,i, in ASIC's view is if somebody is trying to rush you into an investment.

So if anyone is doing that, if anyone's m- made a phone call to you, if you've clicked on a, you know, some kind of investment opportunity online and, and, uh, you get inundated with what look like, you know, glossy brochures and opportunities and things, just- Bring that investor cynicism or skepticism, um, to that and do your due diligence.

And it's not easy, but there's a lot of information on Moneysmart that can help you do that.

Mm

What is, as the, the chair of ASIC, which, um, is a fantastic position to be in, lots of responsibility, as I mentioned, what does a typical day look like for you? Obviously you're doing a, a media thing right now, but what is a, what, what, what goes into your day?

Yeah.

Well, a lot of meetings go into my day, Owen.

Um, and I know people complain about meetings, uh, a lot, um, but really that's a big part of the, the job.

So I have a lot of meetings external to the agency, so engaging with people that ASIC regulates.

So I'm frequently catching up with the, um, boards or CEOs of the major banks or superannuation funds or the insurance sector, which is the, uh, main areas of the financial system that ASIC regulates.

Um, engaging with government, obviously, other government departments and the like, trying to get a, a lens, if you like, on sort of what's coming over the horizon that ASIC needs to, to know about.

Mm

walk us through what your new report has looked into with the banks and why ASIC has decided to review this now and what the big findings are because I think it might – raise the shackles of the few people out there who have offset accounts and get them to have a second look.

Yeah, and I'll take you through some of the findings, Bec, but I think the primary message that we would be giving to your listeners is that if you do have an offset account and Now is a good time to have a look at it and make sure that it is properly linked to your mortgage so that you are getting the benefit of that offset account that you were expecting to get.

And the reason we say that is that across the country, there's nearly $350 billion that are sitting in offset accounts as at March 2026.

And that number is increasing fast.

So it's increased by about 28% over the last couple of years.

So what that means is there are more and more Australians that are using offset accounts to help them pay less in their interest charges.

So lots of people think that they are working for them.

Do you want to run us through them so everybody can feel them out and see which one might be hitting there? offset account if they do have an issue?

Earlier today, I spoke with ASIC chair Sarah Court.

Yeah.

So we have found a range of issues, um, Ross, that we've been concerned about, and there are a few figures that I'll throw at you first.

So we know that there's been some $55 million paid back to customers when banks have made what we think are pretty basic errors in relation to linking mortgage offset accounts with people's home loans.

So we think that's covered around 260-odd thousand people, and we know that the banks are continuing to review and find more failures here.

So these are significant issues.

One of the things we have found, um, very interesting is when we went to the banks, uh, and we've surveyed about 70% of the home loan market.

Surely the bank itself should be the one that is checking to ensure that these things are linked.

... for problems that you don't have?

Yeah.

It's a really good question.

I mean, what we see in terms of, like, the responses we get from people on the internet is sort of, we get, we, there's sort of categories.

There's the people who understand how to spot this, and even if it was someone that they previously liked, for example, someone like Stacy Sims or...

Sorry, people get mad when I don't call him doctor, but I f- I'm like, in my head, I'm like, you've kind of, like, unearned that title.

But anyway, Dr. Stacy Sims, Dr. Vonda Wright, Dr. Mary Claire Haver.

And then there's even some sources that cite very light, right? [laughs] So but it's all, it's important to realize that it's all relative to the individual in question and their maximum.