The Australian financial services regulator reported an almost 60 per cent rise in “fees, fines, charges, penalties and levies” collected on behalf of its government over the 12 months to June 30.
According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) 2026 annual report, the regulator sent off A$3 billion (2025: A$1.9 billion) to the federal government sourced from various fund-raising activities including A$830 million in civil court-ordered penalties.
Some 32 cases hit the Australian courts on ASIC charges during the financial year in a period that saw the record for the highest fine achieved by the regulator broken twice.
“We secured findings against Australia and New Zealand Banking Group for widespread misconduct across its retail banking division, and for institutional and markets misconduct,” Sarah Court, ASIC chair, says in the report.
“This resulted in combined penalties ordered against ANZ in the amount of $250 million – at the time, the largest combined penalty ever obtained by ASIC.”
But the ANZ high-score, chalked-up in September 2025, fell less than nine months later when a more than two-year legal pursuit of derivatives issuer, Union Standard International Group, ended with a A$300 million penalty imposed.
“This reflected the egregious nature of their conduct in the contracts for difference (CFD) sector, which resulted in heavy losses for their customers,” Court says. “The record penalty sent a strong message of deterrence across the sector.”
Aside from adding to government coffers with the series of legal wins, ASIC also squeezed more than A$580 million out of a range of financial firms in direct reparations to consumers: more than 70 per cent of the client refunds relate to the collapse of the Shield and First Guardian funds that triggered collective losses of $1.1 billion plus across thousands of superannuation scheme members.
“As at June 2026, ASIC had commenced 15 proceedings in the Federal Court against 30 defendants [over the Shield and First Guardian failures],” Court says. “Some 4,000 consumers have so far received around $421 million in repayments from Macquarie Investment Management and Netwealth Superannuation Services following court enforceable undertakings to ASIC.”
Despite the off-accounts financial wins, the regulator booked an almost A$90 million deficit for the 12-month period to June 30 as government cutbacks and soaring costs.
Expenses rose more than A$116 million year-on-year to about A$736 million while revenue of circa A$646 million was up just over A$8 million compared to 2025.
The report attributes much of the budget blowout to “increased enforcement activity and costs associated with enhancing ASIC’s data and digital capabilities”.
Like its Australian counterpart, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has been busy in the courts during its reporting year, which also ends on June 30.
The FMA secured court penalties of at least $37 million from seven institutions over the financial year, mostly over insurance-related breaches including the $19.5 million fine slapped on IAG last October.
And the regulator has a number other resource-intense cases on the go including liquidation moves against property-based schemes Du Val and Chance Voight as well as landmark High Court actions slated for Booster and InvestNow.
As per ASIC, the extra FMA legal legwork has strained the regulator’s litigation kitty, which received a marginal increase of under $0.5 million to its annual $5 million allocation in the May budget.
In a briefing to the incoming Commerce Minister Cameron Brewer this April, the FMA notes that its litigation budget “is being tested by the cases that are currently in progress”.
“FMA action has led to more than $60 million in penalty payments being returned to the Crown over the past four years,” the briefing notes.
The regulator has forecast a deficit of almost $1 million for the 12 months to June 30, 2027, on expected total revenue of about $87.3 million, up from $81.2 million in the previous financial year.
FMA accounts for the 2025/26 reporting period are due in November.