The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued warning notices to 18 social media “finfluencers” suspected of unlawfully promoting high-risk financial products and providing unlicensed financial advice to Australians, as part of a Global Week of Action Against Unlawful Finfluencers involving nine international market regulators. Coordinated activity with regulators in the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Italy, Hong Kong and Canada included enforcement and supervisory measures such as arrests, warning notices, website takedowns, educational schemes with authorised finfluencers and consumer awareness programmes. ASIC’s concerns focus on finfluencers presenting themselves as trading experts while promoting complex, high-risk products such as contracts for difference (CFDs) and over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, often alongside misleading claims about likely success and efforts to funnel followers into closed groups to copy trades. ASIC reiterated that providing financial product advice generally requires an Australian financial services licence or authorisation, and noted that misleading or deceptive conduct prohibitions apply regardless of licensing status. ASIC said it continues targeted monitoring of finfluencer content and will take enforcement action where harm is occurring, and pointed consumers to its professional registers as a way to check whether a finfluencer is licensed or authorised.

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