ASIC: Top Risks Shaping Australia’s Financial System

Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has published its Key issues outlook 2026 (27 January 2026), stating it is tracking major shifts across Australia’s financial system as pressures on consumers, markets and businesses intensify. ASIC points to continued cost-of-living strains, rising debt, and ongoing geopolitical tensions as drivers of volatility and uncertainty, alongside rapid advances in AI that are transforming financial services while fuelling a surge in AI-powered cybercrime that can undermine trust in AI-driven decisions. 

ASIC also highlights structural changes, including expanding private markets and accelerating digitalisation, and notes that changes to ASX governance requirements may reshape how listed companies operate in ways that affect transparency and market confidence. It adds that diverging global regulatory settings are increasing fragmentation, making compliance more complex and raising the risk of uneven consumer protections. ASIC emphasises these issues cut across all sectors it regulates and are not ranked, but are intended to focus attention on where risks are most likely to emerge and where ASIC is prioritising efforts to safeguard trust, integrity and confidence. 

The outlook then lists specific 2026 risk areas: increased retail exposure to private credit markets (including low investment thresholds and limited transparency and reporting), operational failures by superannuation trustees that can harm members, and consumers losing retirement savings through high-risk products driven by aggressive marketing and inappropriate advice models (including ASIC noting court cases underway related to Shield and First Guardian matters). It also flags consumer harms from advanced technology (including agentic AI), cyber-attacks and inadequate operational resilience, and regulatory gaps around emerging participants such as digital assets, payments and users of AI. 

ASIC further identifies poor insurance claims handling—particularly after extreme weather events—risks from CHESS replacement delays or outages (and the ongoing reliance on ageing infrastructure), concerns about financial reporting, sustainability reporting and audit quality, and the risk of increased banking sector risk appetite driven by competitive pressures that could lead to consumer harm. 

Source: Key issues outlook 2026 | ASIC