Australian Securities & Investments Commission secures new RegistryConnect funding and prepares consultation on publishing firm-level complaints and breach reports

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) published a keynote speech outlining how its publicly accessible registers and other datasets support consumer protection and business activity, and setting out planned enhancements to expand publication of regulatory data and improve registry data quality. ASIC said it administers 32 registers, with 343 million searches and 3.1 million updates in the last financial year, including 3.39 million companies on the Australian Companies Register and 2.84 million entries on the Business Names Register. It plans to add new published datasets by moving from aggregate releases of internal dispute resolution (IDR) reporting to entity-by-entity publication, noting 4.7 million complaints were reported in 2023/24, and to consult on publication of reportable situations data (breach reporting). Separately, ASIC confirmed funding for the next tranche of the RegistryConnect program, with priorities including resolving fragmented or duplicated data, inaccurate Australian Business Number linkages and fraudulent addresses, improving authentication and authorisation controls, and linking the Australian Taxation Office’s director ID data to the Companies Register to improve identification of director histories and patterns relevant to misconduct detection. ASIC said consultation on how to publish IDR data and reportable situations data will commence soon, and that director ID linking is expected to move over time towards capturing director ID information at company registration and supporting updates to director information.