The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) says its compliance and monitoring will be improved through investment in Big Data technology and an infrastructure overhaul.

“Additional funding support announced by the Government will allow us to extend our data platform across our regulatory business to better capture and use data, and develop our data analytics capabilities,” the regulator says in a report.

ASIC is also stepping up its communications strategy to ensure its priorities, expectations and the regulatory tools at its disposal are clearly understood.

“We will do so in a greater range of documents using a wider range of communication channels.

“We will also do more work explaining our proactive surveillance and enforcement to influence behaviour across industry.”

The Regulator Performance Framework report sets out ASIC’s self-assessment against six key performance indicators last financial year, and steps to improve.

The regulator says it is moving to more effectively use various stakeholder panels to improve communication, reduce the unnecessary cost burden of regulation and better understand the markets it oversees.

ASIC says some organisations commenting on a draft of the report suggested the metrics are too process-oriented, rather than outcome-focused.

Other respondents complained of too much focus on the cost of regulation to business rather than assessing the broader benefits, the website being difficult to navigate, and room for improvement in co-operation between regulators.