The financial services sector is governed by regulations and the smallest slip can result in disciplinary action or complete suspension of business. As a financial services marketing agency, we’re following ESMA, CySEC, FSA, FCA and providing monthly Regulation Roundups covering all the essential updates. But this time, we’re all eyes on Australian regulator ASIC. Join us as we delve into marketing for ASIC brokers.
The Australian Financial Landscape
The Australian dollar is a major global currency. It’s also one of the top five traded currencies in the world accounting for approximately 7% of daily forex transactions. While investors and traders are attracted to AUD/USD liquidity with intraday traders looking to capitalise on short-term price fluctuations; other investors turn to this pair with the aim of achieving long-term capital appreciation. The AUD is therefore very much in the spotlight with Australia also being a major participant in the forex market as it’s the first hub to kick-start the trading week.
The Importance of ASIC
The job of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is to regulate the ever-growing financial services industry. ASIC’s role under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 is to license and monitor financial services businesses throughout Australia to ensure that they operate efficiently, honestly and fairly.
Just like ESMA across Europe. ASIC is designed to:
- Maintain, facilitate, and improve the financial system’s performance
- Promote confident and informed investor and consumer participation
- Administer and enforce the law effectively and efficiently
- Process and store information efficiently and quickly
- Make information regarding companies and other bodies public in a timely manner1
Who Does ASIC Apply To?
The ASIC regulates Australian companies, financial markets, financial service organizations, and financial professionals. It also acts as the consumer credit regulator and licenses and regulates organizations such as banks, credit unions, finance companies, and mortgage brokers according to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act of 2009. ASIC is also the markets regulator and ensures that financial markets are fair, transparent markets and advises the Minister when new markets are being considered for authorization. As the financial services regulator, the ASIC licenses and monitors financial service individuals.
The ASIC lists the following as powers that fall within its mandate:
- Register financial services providers
- Maintain publicly accessible registers
- Grant Australian financial services and credit licenses
- Intervene to grant defective products
- Make legislative rules to ensure financial market integrity
- Grant relief from legislation
- Investigate suspected breaches
- Issue infringement notices
- Seek civil penalties
- Ban individual activity
- Prosecute offenders
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ASIC Regulations and Content Marketing
ASIC regulations are strict and consumer focused. But where does this leave you as an ASIC regulated broker looking to market your products and services? Marketing for ASIC doesn’t have to be difficult. But you do have to follow the rules. Or, get a professional financial services content marketing agency to create your content. Our team of financial services marketers understand Australia’s financial landscape. We stay updated on the latest regulations and requirements from ASIC to ensure we provide compliant content. Our content marketing services for forex brokers include technical analysis, education, video marketing and finance-focused social media.
ASIC Dos
Create Balanced Messaging
According to ASIC, advertisements and marketing material for financial products and credit products should give a balanced message about the returns, benefits and risks associated with the product. Benefits should not be given undue prominence compared with the risks to make a service seem more appealing. Marketing material must not create unrealistic expectations.
Highlight Risks
Information about the risks of a product should be clear and not hidden or difficult to understand. The overall tone of the marketing material should not undermine the importance of the risks. For example, if you’re promoting CFD trading, you must highlight the risk of substantial losses for your advert, social media content or website copy to be acceptable.
Avoid Misleading Headlines
ASIC states how warnings, disclaimers and qualifications should not be inconsistent with other content in an advertisement, including any headline claims. For instance, advertisements for CFDs should not include headline claims such as ‘Build personal wealth with low-risk trading strategies’ or ‘Safely harness the leverage power of CFDs.’ Words such as ‘low-risk’ and ‘safely’ are extremely misleading when the product could indeed lead to huge losses.
And this goes for email subject headings, video titles, eBooks and basically everything else!
Top tip for marketers: Compile a list of words and phrase you must not use in any marketing copy including (but not limited to) ‘safe,’ ‘secure’, ‘guaranteed’ ‘success’, ‘hassle-free earning’, ‘huge returns’ and such like. Avoid such jargon to stay out of the ASIC regulatory spotlight.
Present Warnings Clearly
When it comes to content marketing for ASIC, presentation matters. Warnings, disclaimers and qualifications should have sufficient prominence to effectively convey key information to a reasonable member of the audience on first viewing the advertisement. Consumers should not need to go to another website (or other page of the website) or document to correct a misleading impression. So, no small print. No hiding messages deep within your website or faded out on the footer of your images. Warnings should be located next to the service you’re offering and marketing. Warnings should also be displayed clearly on social media posts. Video warnings should also be clear and not undermined by distracting sounds or images, so make sure you’re consistent with compliance across all media types and platforms.
Be transparent
Transparency in financial services marketing under ASIC is incredibly important. Where a fee or cost is referred to in an advertisement, it should give a realistic impression of the overall level of fees and costs a consumer is likely to pay, including any indirect fees or costs. Comparisons should only be made between products that have sufficiently similar features or, where an advertisement compares different products, the differences should be made clear in the advertisement. Past performance information should be accompanied by a warning that past performance is not indicative of future performance. Forecasts about the future performance of a financial product should be based on reasonable assumptions and should also state that the forecasts are not guaranteed to occur.
Avoid sweeping statements
Marketing for ASIC means that materials should not state or imply that a product is suitable for particular types of customers, unless the promoter has assessed that product is suitable for that class. Actually, generalising is not the best idea in content marketing.
Be careful with targeting
It’s a wide world out there and it can be tempting to approach as many potential traders as possible. If you’re regulated under ASIC, but not CySEC or the FCA then you should only be targeting the Australia region. Adverts actively promoting your services to Europe could land you in hot water. Watch your targeting on Facebook, Twitter, Insta and Linkedin to ensure you’re not including regions you’re not regulated under. And ASIC can and does monitor Google ads too. Essentially everything you write online can be assessed.
Partnering With Influencers Doesn’t Negate Compliance
ASIC has come down hard on finance brands who have partnered with finfluencers to circumnavigate compliance rules. If a social media influencer conveys a recommendation about a certain financial product, or otherwise induces another person to invest in a certain product, that will amount to financial product advice. For example, a social media influencer might say on their platform:
You should really be investing in the following shares which have great returns and are good for investors looking to get into the market.
Such a statement would amount to an opinion or recommendation which can reasonably be regarded as influencing the decision of a person to invest in the financial product. And even non financial services brands need to be careful. Under Australian consumer law, advertising must not mislead or deceive consumers. If an influencer doesn’t disclose content on their profile as an ad or sponsorship, this could be misleading or deceptive conduct. If so, they may be found in breach of the Australian Consumer Law and liable to pay a significant fine.
Avoid Greenwashing
ASIC has made 47 regulatory interventions to address greenwashing misconduct during the 15-month period up to 30 June 2024, including the commencement of two Federal Court proceedings and over $123,000 in infringement notice payments. The range of interventions, outlined in Report 791 ASIC’s interventions on greenwashing misconduct: 2023–2024 (REP 791), are aimed at stamping out misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to sustainable finance-related products and services. ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said,
This was ASIC’s first greenwashing case brought before the Federal Court; a landmark case both for ASIC and for the financial services industry. It demonstrates the importance of making accurate ESG claims to investors and potential investors.
ASIC Marketing – What Works?
While marketing for ASIC might seem a little overwhelming at times, there’s a lot of really cool things you can do as an ASIC broker to keep your audience entertained and informed.
Properly sourced information
Compliance officers want, and need to see sourced information in blogs, posts and marketing materials. And those sources need to be of a high quality such as Bloomberg. Sourcing spammy or low quality information can jeopardise the integrity and compliance of the content being published. At Contentworks Agency, we provide properly sourced content for compliance officers to approve.
Polls
Asking your social media followers questions is perfectly acceptable and won’t go against basic ASIC regulation. So, why not create a poll to inform your audience while also boosting engagement? Sharing the percentage result is fine too. Asking an opinion, as long as it does not incite trading or contain a link to trade, does not require a risk warning.
Post market insights
Become a go-to source of information for traders by posting market insights that might impact their overall decision making. Stick to the facts and give a breakdown of key statistics and currency pair comparisons. Always back up any stats with an official and reputable source.
Tweet timely information
Twitter is ideal for posting timely, on-point information. In fact, #Australia and #AUS are closely followed on Twitter (X). Trading is a fast-paced business with many people watching the markets closely throughout the day, so it’s a good idea to be alert and have someone regularly updating your account. Stating market movements without inciting trading or including a link to trade, does not require a warning. Remember though, retweeting another source can be viewed as an endorsement. so, if you retweet something that promises instant wealth from trading, you could be on shaky ground.
Keep up with news
From stock reports to company politics, keeping up with Australia’s news and posting relevant content to social media can help boost brand awareness. Be sure to use the relevant hashtags to encourage conversation and to make your posts easy to find. Remember, not everything has to be about finance. Popular holidays, sporting events and celebrations make great compliant social media posts.
Include eye-catching imagery
Posts with images get 2.3 times more engagement than posts without. So, try to include eye-catching pictures or GIFs to attract attention. Beware of any misleading messaging or wording on the image itself as you don’t want anything slipping through the net that could land you in regulatory hot water. Adding a risk warning to an image showing a guy getting rich from trading won’t be enough to cover you.
Contentworks and ASIC Regulated Brokers
As an international content marketing agency for the finance sector, we’re fully clued up the rules. Our director Charlotte has authored several articles on the topic, one of which you can read here.
How to Be Great at Social Media for Financial Services
We understand how to create compliant content for a wide range of broker types and have worked under ASIC to provide marketing material for reputable ASIC brokers across Australia. Our compliant services for ASIC brokers include:
- Performance marketing
- Social media management
- Video scripts & production
- Blogs and articles
- e-books
- PR and reputation management
We know how to work alongside compliance officers, so your published content is approved and safe. Get in contact with the Contentworks team today to discuss marketing for your broker.