Development of the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act

Parliamentary process

In March 2019, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs released a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill. The SOP made a number of technical amendments to the Bill.

Read the Bill, including Supplementary Order Paper(external link)

After considering the Bill, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee in 2018 recommended some changes in response to concerns raised by submitters. These changes are summarised in the Committee’s commentary on the revised Bill:

The commentary and  revised Bill(external link)

The submissions and advice to the Committee(external link)

A new regulatory regime

The Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill had its third reading on 4 April 2019 and has now been passed into law. The legislation introduces a new regulatory regime for financial advice.

The new regime was developed following our review of the Financial Advisers Act 2008 and the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008.

Read more information about the Government decisions and Cabinet papers

Consultation during the review

In March 2017 we consulted on an exposure draft of the amendment Bill and on proposed transitional arrangements. Following this consultation a number of changes were made to the Bill.

Read about the consultation on the exposure draft of the amendment Bill.

The review of the 2 Acts included formal consultations on an Issues paper and an Options paper:

Issues paper consultation

Options paper consultation

Review of the FA Act and the FSP Act

We completed a statutory review of the Financial Advisers Act 2008 (FA Act) and the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008 (FSP Act) in 2016.

Below you can read our final report on the review, the terms of reference, Cabinet paper, and The Consumer Focus Group's report.