Australia’s regulators and its financial industry are teaming up in an effort to develop a new approach to online financial product disclosure.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced the launch of a project, in partnership with the financial industry, to develop innovative, digital financial product disclosure. The ASIC said that it will work with a couple of major industry firms, AMP and Vanguard, to develop, and test with consumers, a short, online ‘key facts’ disclosure document and a self-assessment tool, in an effort at improving investor understanding.

The joint venture follows recent proposals from the ASIC that aim to encourage more online disclosure, and improve the utility of that disclosure.

The ASIC’s chairman, Greg Medcraft, says that it sees technology as essential to improving the effectiveness of disclosure. “We want investors to have trust and confidence in our financial system and part of that is for ASIC to explore new ways for investors to get to grips with their investments,” he says.

He also called on the financial industry to harness technology as investors increasingly access financial products, and make investment decisions, using mobile devices. “More work needs to be done on short disclosure. Investors tend to turn off when faced with wordy disclosure documents. If they need more detail, investors can access further layers of information from product providers online,” he says.

The ASIC also suggests that financial firms could be presenting information in interactive, or video form, and offer online tools for investors to assess their understanding of products.

Medcraft says that the regulator will use its findings from the project to inform broader work on digital disclosure. It expects to have preliminary results are expected by mid-2015.–

The economy grew at an annualized pace of 2.8 per cent in the third quarter, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The jump in Canada’s gross domestic product was higher than the 2.1 per cent economists had expected, according to Thomson Reuters.

Statistics Canada said real GDP was up by 0.7 per cent during the quarter ending September 30, after a 0.9 per cent increase in the previous quarter.

On a monthly basis, the economy grew in September by 0.4 per cent.

The agency said the growth was mainly the result of exports and household spending.