Is regulation keeping you awake at night?

Jane Diplock. Photo / Richard Robinson

Great news for insomniacs: there's a swathe of bedtime reading available over at the Securities Commission this week.

You can start by flicking through the speech uttered by Commission chairman, Jane Diplock, at the '27th Annual Banking & Financial Services Law & Practice Conference' in Queenstown.

Her speech titled 'Regulation after the GFC' reprises some points raised in an earlier address but here Diplock appears to be even more strident, calling for a global financial regulator to be established.

"Gone are the days when we can hide behind the defence of domestic political realities," she says. "Perceived conflicts between the global and the local can no longer be cited as an excuse for avoiding the necessity of implementing global standards around the world."

Great fodder for conspiracy theorists. And this may be a coincidence but Diplock will be looking for a new job soon so...

If you're not interested in grand theories of financial regulation, try the Securities Commission Annual Report for a nuts-and-bolts analysis of what the regulator actually does all day.
You can also find out how much the Securities Commission chairman is paid (clue - it's on page 53).

The Commission accounts also reveal it has gone over budget to the tune of almost $1 million as it went through the fraught process of implementing the Financial Advisers Act (FAA), and its various offspring.

And I quote: "Significant variances from budget were:

i) Increased personnel expenditure because of higher than expected staffing activity for FAA and AML implementation

ii) Increased other expenditure because of greater than expected activity on industry liaison for FAA implementation."

Almost $300,000 of that FAA budget was spent on remunerating the committee responsible for drafting the code of professional conduct for authorised financial advisers (AFA).

The Commission will have to dig around for a little bit more at the bottom of its budget for these purposes because the Commissioner for Financial Advisers, David Mayhew, has just knocked back the final draft code version 15, or whatever it was.

Mayhew's letter, which you can find hereabouts, was a little obtuse but I'm sure he raises some good points which that Ross Butler guy, who heads the code committee, will get right on with sorting out.
If you're still awake, try this, although I must stress the AFA Authorisation Guide is one for fans only.

Good luck and Good night.