Asia Region Funds Passport 2018

Overview

The Government is seeking submissions on a draft of the Asia Region Funds Passport (Passport) Regulations and related explanatory materials.

The Passport is a common framework of coordinated regulatory oversight to facilitate cross border issuing of managed investment funds. Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Thailand are signatories to the Passport's Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC), which took effect on 30 June 2016.

Legislation to establish the Asia Region Funds Passport passed the Senate on 28 June 2018. The regulations provide additional detail on the operation of the Passport Bill. In particular the regulations:

• require an operator of a notified foreign passport fund to lodge copies of documents in the prescribed form and set out other requirements regarding lodging documents with ASIC;
• list the particulars which are to be included on the new register of passport funds and give the public a right to search the register;
• extend many of the disclosure requirements and exemptions that currently apply to managed investment products to foreign passport fund products; and
• amend various fee regulations to prescribe new fees for certain matters relating to notified foreign passport funds.