ASIC proposes to remake relief from dollar disclosure and AFS licensing requirements
ASIC is consulting on remaking two legislative instruments that provide relief from dollar disclosure and AFS licensing requirements, both expiring 1 October 2026. One substantive change would extend dollar disclosure exemptions to discretionary mutual funds issuing risk products.
ASIC is seeking feedback on a proposal to remake two legislative instruments that currently provide relief from dollar disclosure and certain Australian financial services (AFS) licensing requirements. Both instruments are due to expire on 1 October 2026, and submissions close at 5pm AEST on 1 June 2026.
ASIC's five-year relief remake: what financial services firms need to know about updated disclosure and licensing exemptions
For financial services firms, AFS licensees, and their legal advisers, ASIC's five-year relief remake represents a routine but important regulatory housekeeping exercise. The two instruments being remade underpin day-to-day compliance for a range of product issuers and advice providers — and the proposed changes, while described as minor and technical, include one substantive extension that discretionary mutual funds in particular should note.
What are the two instruments?
ASIC Corporations (Disclosure in Dollars) Instrument 2016/767 provides exemptions from requirements to disclose certain information in Australian dollars within a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), Statement of Advice (SOA), or periodic statement. These disclosure obligations would otherwise apply under Parts 7.7 and 7.9 of the Corporations Act 2001.
In plain English: without this relief, some financial product issuers would be required to express specific information in AUD even where doing so is impractical — for example, where a product is denominated in a foreign currency and a live conversion would be misleading or operationally burdensome.
ASIC Corporations (Financial Product Advice – Exempt Documents) Instrument 2016/356 provides licensing relief to entities that give general advice about financial products within certain documents. The documents covered include explanatory statements for foreign schemes of arrangement and offer documents for control transactions regulated in a specified foreign market.
In plain English: entities producing these documents are not required to hold an AFS licence solely because those documents contain general financial product advice — provided the document falls within the instrument's scope.
What is changing?
ASIC is proposing minor and technical amendments to both instruments to improve clarity and consistency. These are not substantive policy changes to the existing relief.
However, there is one notable substantive proposal: ASIC intends to extend the dollar disclosure exemptions in Instrument 2016/767 to cover certain risk products provided by discretionary mutual funds. Currently, the instrument does not provide these exemptions for discretionary risk products issued by discretionary mutual funds. This extension would bring those products into line with the relief already available to comparable products.
Worked example
Consider a discretionary mutual fund — call it Fund A — that issues a risk product (such as a discretionary cover arrangement) to members. Under the current instrument, Fund A cannot rely on the dollar disclosure exemption when preparing its PDS or periodic statements. If ASIC's proposal is finalised as drafted, Fund A would be able to rely on the same exemption already available to other product issuers, reducing the compliance burden associated with mandatory AUD disclosure for that product type.
Checklist for affected firms
Use this checklist to assess whether your firm needs to act before 1 October 2026:
- Identify whether your firm currently relies on either Instrument 2016/767 or Instrument 2016/356 for any product, document, or advice process.
- If you issue risk products through a discretionary mutual fund structure, assess whether the proposed extension to Instrument 2016/767 affects your disclosure obligations.
- Review the consultation paper (CS 51) to understand the precise scope of the proposed minor and technical changes to both instruments.
- Consider whether any internal compliance documentation, PDS templates, SOA templates, or periodic statement processes reference the current instruments and will need updating once the remade instruments are registered.
- Decide whether your firm wishes to make a submission — if so, submissions must be sent to rri.consultation@asic.gov.au by 5pm AEST on 1 June 2026.
- Monitor ASIC's newsroom for the finalised instruments ahead of the 1 October 2026 expiry date.
What you should do next
- Read ASIC's consultation paper CS 51 (Proposed remake of relief from dollar disclosure reporting and AFS licensing requirements for general advice in certain exempt documents) in full before forming a view on the proposed changes.
- Check whether your firm or any clients rely on either instrument and flag the 1 October 2026 expiry date in your compliance calendar.
- If your firm operates or advises discretionary mutual funds that issue risk products, assess the impact of the proposed extension to Instrument 2016/767 and consider lodging a submission.
- Send any submissions to rri.consultation@asic.gov.au by 5pm AEST on 1 June 2026.
- Update template documents and compliance frameworks once the remade instruments are finalised and registered.
Sources
Quick facts
ASIC is proposing to remake two legislative instruments — Instrument 2016/767 and Instrument 2016/356 — that provide relief from dollar disclosure and AFS licensing requirements respectively. Both instruments are due to expire on 1 October 2026, and ASIC is accepting submissions until 5pm AEST on 1 June 2026.
The one substantive change in ASIC's proposed remake is an extension of the dollar disclosure exemptions in Instrument 2016/767 to cover certain risk products issued by discretionary mutual funds. Currently, discretionary mutual funds cannot rely on this exemption, placing them at a disadvantage relative to comparable product issuers already covered by the relief.
ASIC Corporations (Financial Product Advice – Exempt Documents) Instrument 2016/356 provides AFS licensing relief to entities that give general advice about financial products within certain documents, including explanatory statements for foreign schemes of arrangement and offer documents for control transactions regulated in a specified foreign market.
Entities producing documents covered by Instrument 2016/356 are not required to hold an AFS licence solely because those documents contain general financial product advice, provided the document falls within the instrument's defined scope. ASIC describes the proposed amendments to both instruments as minor and technical, aimed at improving clarity and consistency.