The recent introduction of a new accounting standard for the treatment of lease assets jeopardised the ability of a number of fund managers to meet their financial requirements. Recognising the issues presented by this change, ASIC issued a temporary no-action position for AFS licensees for potential breaches of the financial requirements in this context. However, in a step toward providing regulatory certainty, ASIC published a consultation paper seeking feedback on its proposal to allow right-of-use assets to be included in the calculation of the financial requirements.

Industry has until 26 February 2021 to provide feedback on the consultation paper.

We will keep you up to date with further developments. Contact us if you need to understand more about these proposed changes or if you have other questions about meeting your financial requirements as an AFS licensee.