ASIC has extended Class Order 04/526 on foreign collective investment schemes for two years beyond its expiration date this month.

Class order 04/526 provides relief for collective investment schemes (CIS) from the requirement to register as managed investment schemes or obtain Australian financial services licences whose relevant overseas regulators are "sufficiently equivalent" to the Australian one.

ASIC Corporations (Repeal and Transitional) Instrument 2017/271 extends the relief in class order 04/526 in the same form for two years.

ASIC has done this so that it can review and consult interested parties about the policy settings of its relief in the light of the Government’s desire to introduce of new collective investment vehicles and implementat the Asia Region Funds Passport regime. The Australian Financial Centre Forum recommended the creation of such a passport in a report in the Johnson Report of 2010. The Government set up the Australian Financial Centre Forum in 2008 to advise it about the development of Australia as a leading centre of financial services.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Finance Ministers’ Process explored ways of developing and gauging regional interest in the concept of a passport. It acted as a point of collaboration between financial policy makers, regulators, financial firms and technical experts in fora and workshops.

Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and Singapore formed a working group to make detailed technical arrangements, with Thailand and the Philippines joining later. On 20 September 2013, finance ministers from Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and Singapore signed a statement of intent on the Indonesian island of Bali on the Asia Region Funds Passport in which they promised to consult interested parties about the details they planned to finalise and in which they aimed to bring the passport into use by 2016. This has not happened yet and their next meeting is scheduled for the latter part of this month. The group is now looking forward to the 'commencement' of the passport in late 2017.

ASIC will consult the public about its relief for foreign collective investment schemes before 1 April 2019.