ASIC chair calls for ‘boring’ investing, warns on AI risk

The West Australian01-27

Advances in artificial intelligence, financial technology and online advertising are creating a perfect storm of investment risk for Australians insufficiently prepared to manage their own retirement ...

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","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"thewest.com.au","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4526":"热门中概股","BK4141":"半导体产品","BK4585":"ETF&股票定投概念","IE00BD6J9T35.USD":"NEUBERGER BERMAN NEXT GENERATION MOBILITY \"A\" (USD) ACC","LU1854103824.USD":"M&G (LUX) POSITIVE IMPACT \"A\" (USD) INC","LU1978683503.SGD":"Blackrock Sustainable Energy A2 SGD-H","ASX":"日月光半导体","ON":"安森美半导体","BK4107":"财产与意外伤害保险","ASIC":"Ategrity Specialty Holdings","LU1861214812.USD":"Blackrock Future of Transport A2 USD","IE00BZ199S13.USD":"BNY MELLON MOBILITY INNOVATION \"B\" (USD) ACC","LU0348723411.USD":"ALLIANZ GLOBAL HI-TECH GROWTH \"A\" (USD) INC","BK4588":"碎股","BK4543":"AI","BK4512":"苹果概念","ASX.AU":"ASX LTD","LU1861219969.SGD":"Blackrock Future of Transport A2 SGD-H","BK4605":"半导体精选","LU1720051108.HKD":"ALLIANZ GLOBAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE \"AT\" (HKD) ACC","LU1720051017.SGD":"Allianz Global Artificial Intelligence AT Acc H2-SGD","LU1861215975.USD":"贝莱德新一代科技基金 A2","LU2357305700.SGD":"Allianz Global Artificial Intelligence ET H2-SGD","LU1854104046.USD":"M&G (LUX) POSITIVE IMPACT \"A\" (USD) ACC","LU1548497426.USD":"安联环球人工智能AT Acc","LU2360107325.USD":"BGF FUTURE OF TRANSPORT \"A4\" (USD) INC","LU1861220033.SGD":"Blackrock Next Generation Technology A2 SGD-H","LU0124384867.USD":"贝莱德新能源基金A2","LU2298322129.HKD":"BGF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY \"A2\" (HKDHDG) ACC","BK7039":"金融交易所和数据","LU0724618433.USD":"BGF NEW ENERGY \"A4\" (USD) INC","IE00BFMHRM44.USD":"NEUBERGER BERMAN GLOBAL EQUITY MEGATRENDS \"A\" (USD) ACC"},"translate_title":"ASIC主席评级警告人工智能风险，称投资“无聊”","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"ASX.AU":1,"ASIC":1.5,"ON":1.5,"ASX":1},"content_text":"Advances in artificial intelligence, financial technology and online advertising are creating a perfect storm of investment risk for Australians insufficiently prepared to manage their own retirement savings, according to ASIC boss Joe Longo.The top investment regulator said the nation’s collective priority should be to improve the financial literacy of 27 million Australians who must make critical choices about how to invest their savings and manage risk in a world where they’re bombarded with online investment options on a daily basis.“But, I don’t want more regulation,” Mr Longo said. “What I want is better understanding of risk and people being more cautious in the way they pursue these investment options.”“We live in a democratic capitalist economy that encourages risk taking and encourages investment. So there’s a balance between wanting people to make their own investment decisions and create wealth, but to do that well informed and in a safe environment.”In total, Mr Longo said ASIC receives more than 10,000 misconduct reports each year, with the proliferation of investment scams via social media, fake websites, and false advertising meaning Australians should be taught how to avoid them, rather than relying on a regulator that is limited in its resources to protect them from losing money.“I think it’s reached a stage where consumers are being bombarded with this stuff,” he warned. “So, I think the system has got to spend more resources on prevention, rather than cure.“A big theme for us this year will be to redouble our efforts around financial literacy and education. We’ll be pressing the government for additional funding there as well.”Understanding investment risk Mr Longo specifically warned Australians need to be better educated on understanding risk, or the probability of losing money, in a world where financial product promotions often advertise high income returns, but disguise the potential for capital erosion.In 2025 for example, ASIC repeatedly warned retail investors that the popular ‘private credit’ sector carries higher risk of capital losses than many believe.The regulator also warned that private credit sector operators may downplay the impact of fees and seek to attract ill-informed investors by offering bonuses, unrealistic rates of return, or by conducting mass advertising campaigns.“My key message to people is if you’re being offered an (income) rate of return of eight, nine, or ten per cent (per year), that has to come with risk (of capital losses),” Mr Longo said.“I’ve said in parliamentary hearings repeatedly, we’ll continue to see losses because it’s a difficult area. People, very often, ordinary punters, lose their life savings, or a significant percentage of their savings, through what they consider to be good faith, good intent, investing, then they feel the system’s let them down.”In another blunt warning, Mr Longo said future investment frauds are all but certain, because humans are not good at assessing risk and often tempted into schemes by the fear of missing out.Regulators cannot manage the natural human desire to seek short cuts to wealth creation and unrealistic returns, Mr Longo said, but should demand better education for Australians in understanding market or investment risks..“AI now also raises the stakes, because the nature of the tech enables products and services to be promoted in a way that is misleading and we know it plays a role in investment scams,” Mr Longo added. “So there needs to be greater caution in taking on financial risk, too many people are betting the family farm on high-risk investments.”Superannuation scamsFor most of 2025 ASIC’s biggest regulatory investigation has been into the collapsed First Guardian and Shield Master Fund superannuation frauds that resulted in around 12,000 Australians losing up to $1 billion in retirement savings.However, Mr Longo rejected the idea that ASIC had been too slow to investigate the funds’ operators after being tipped off about potential problems.“In the case of First Guardian and Shield Master, we were able to gather data from various sources and form an early view that we needed to intervene,” he argued. “A lot of that goes from people moving their money from a relatively well-regulated retail fund to platforms that are high risk.”Society wide problemAccording to data from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), between January and November 2025, Australians reported nearly $260 million in losses to investment or consumer scams, with nearly 160,000 complaints filed.Investment scam victims also come from all sectors of an Australian society that promotes sports gambling, benefits from high minimum wages, and the system of compulsory retirement savings.In Sydney’s wealthy eastern suburbs fraudster, Melissa Caddick, stole around $30 million in a investment scam from friends and family investors, while other Australians continue to lose small sums after being misled into buying fraudulent cryptocurrencies.“The point I want to make is too many people are losing their money in a variety of circumstances, when they shouldn’t be,” said Mr Longo. “For the ordinary punter the path to wealth creation is actually quite well trodden.“So to my mind, one of the words I’ve been using is that investing has to become a little bit more boring. We need to say there’s no quick journey to wealth creation, it all takes time.”Super funds to improve member services and fixing the ASXMr Longo will bow out from his five-year term as chairman of ASIC in May 2026 and says other priorities before his departure include making sure giant superannuation schemes lift their levels of member services, systems, data collection, and responsiveness.He said the powerful funds have been good at accumulating more than $4 trillion in retirement savings under management, but need to focus more on member services, as millions of Australians retire and spend their super over the next decade.“So it’s shining a light on how effective superannuation funds are at dealing with their members, and that brings us back again to infrastructure, to systems, processes, data, matters of that nature,” he said. “The superannuation funds are making progress and I think as a sector they’ve acknowledged that they now need to invest in that capability.”The final big enforcement priority for Mr Longo is to ensure the securities exchange operator the ASX gets back on track as a flagship part of the financial system after a horror run of operating blunders that shattered confidence in Australia’s financial markets infrastructure.“The big one for me before I finish, is clearly ASX,” he said. “We think they (ASX) under-invested in their own systems and technology, and we want them to be more ambitious in their plans for their technology. So the there’s a lot of work to be done at ASX to turn around and rebuild confidence in that critical market infrastructure.”A final review and report by a specialist panel into the ASX including any further recommendations is due to be delivered to ASIC by March 31, 2026.Elsewhere, the government is yet to announce Mr Longo’s successor, although deputy chairperson Sarah Court is widely regarded as the favourite to take the top job next.ASICResearch house targeted in new ASIC lawsuits over collapsesSean SmithYour MoneyPremiumWatchdog pushes financial literacy to counter AI boomJacob Shteyman","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.36.2","shortVersion":"4.36.2","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2606978279","isCrawlerRequest":true}