Trustee
Corporations
Association
of Australia
C
T
A
ANZ Trustees
Australian Executor
Trustees
Equity Trustees
National Australia
Trustees
New South Wales
Trustee and Guardian
Perpetual
Public Trustee for the
Australian Capital
Territory
Public Trustee for the
Northern Territory
The Public Trustee of
Queensland
Public Trustee
South Australia
The Public Trustee
Tasmania
Public Trustee
Western Australia
Sandhurst Trustees
State Trustees
Victoria
Tasmanian Perpetual
Trustees
Trust
________________________________________________________________________________
NATIONAL SECRETARIAT
Level 7, 34 Hunter Street, SYDNEY NSW 2000
GPO Box 1595, SYDNEY NSW 2001
Telephone: (02) 9221 1983
Facsimile: (02) 9221 2639
E-mail: association@trustcorp.org.au
MEDIA RELEASE
5 May 2010
Trustee Corporations Association
Welcomes New National Regulatory Regime
The Trustee Corporations Association, the industry peak
representative body, welcomes the commencement on 6 May of the
Financial Services Modernisation Act, which introduces a new national
regulatory regime for trustee companies.
TCA National President Tony Fitzgerald (Managing Director of State
Trustees Ltd) said “the move to Commonwealth legislation will
eliminate the inconsistencies between current State and Territory
legislation, promote greater efficiency and create a genuine national
market in the provision of traditional trustee company services, such
as the administration of deceased estates and the management of
personal trusts.”
The new regime, with regulation by the Australian Securities and
Investments Commission, will entail robust licensing and ongoing
operating standards to ensure participants have the necessary
resources and expertise to properly conduct trust and estate activities.
Also, clients will have added protection in terms of fee disclosure
arrangements and access to an ASIC approved dispute resolution
system.
Mr Fitzgerald said “the TCA appreciates the opportunity to operate
nationally under a single licence with a single regulator” and added
that “the industry acknowledges the consultative approach taken by
the Government when developing the new regime.”
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For further information, please contact: Tony Fitzgerald, TCA National President, on (03) 9667 6344, Ross Ellis,
TCA Executive Director, on (02) 9221 1983 or Jonathan Atkin, Executive Committee Member (02) 8295-8910
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Background Information
The Trustee Corporations Association (TCA), formed in 1947, is the peak
representative body for the trustee corporations industry in Australia.
Its main objectives are to:
represent and advance the interests of member statutory trustee
corporations with government, regulators and the wider public
serve as a forum for discussion on matters of mutual interest to members
ensure that an adequate training program in the Personal Trust field is
available to members
provide centralised services for members, including maintenance of
industry data
The Association represents 16 organisations, comprising all 8 Public Trust
Offices and the great majority of the 10 private statutory trustee corporations.
The Association operates out of premises in Sydney. It is controlled by a
National Council, which comprises the Chief Executive Officer or another senior
executive of each member institution, and an Executive Committee, made up of
a small group of those persons.
Member products and services
In the 1870s, Governments first enacted legislation to extend the role of
executor or administrator of a deceased estate, traditionally taken on by a
natural person, to licensed trustee corporations.
This was to benefit the public by providing greater expertise and resources than
are available from an individual, together with perpetual succession to a client
establishing a long-term trust.
Within the next decade, most of the trustee corporations that are currently
authorised under relevant State and Territory law were established.
Today, trustee corporations provide a wide range of wealth management
products and services to individual, family and corporate clients, including:
Traditional personal wealth management
Wealth protection and transfer
-
estate planning and writing wills
-
acting as executor of deceased estates
-
establishing, and acting as trustee of, personal trusts,
including testamentary trusts
-
administering client assets under Powers of Attorney
Protecting vulnerable members of the community
-
acting as financial manager or guardian, usually under a Court or Tribunal
order, for persons unable to look after their own affairs, including minors and
the intellectually-disabled
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Administering charitable trusts and foundations
-
including for medical research, galleries, museums, and education
scholarships
Other personal business
-
trustee or administrator for small superannuation funds
-
providing tax advice and preparing tax returns
-
financial planning
Funds management
-
offering most types of unit trusts and common funds
Corporate activities
-
registry and custodial operations
-
trustee for debenture and convertible note issues
-
securitisation facilities
-
compliance monitoring
-
trustee or administrator for retail superannuation funds
Industry statistics
In aggregate, trustee corporations have over $500 billion of assets under
administration or management, and capital resources of about $1 billion.
TCA members manage about 2,000 charitable trusts and foundations with
assets of about $3.3 billion; in 2008/09 they distributed about $180 million to
worthy causes as grants from those trusts and foundations or directly as part of
deceased estate administrations.
They employ over 3,600 staff in almost 90 offices located in all States and
Territories of Australia.
Almost 2 million Australians have their wills recorded with trustee corporations.
Each year trustee corporations:
-
write about 60,000 wills and powers of attorney
-
administer about 9,000 deceased estates
-
administer assets under agency arrangements or Court / Tribunal
orders for about 44,000 people
-
prepare over 40,000 tax returns
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