The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released a regulatory guide on financial information that can be provided online following concerns about the difficulty of proving whether clients have received documents.

The guide covers product disclosure statements, financial services guides and statements of advice.

In releasing Regulatory Guide 221, ASIC says that such disclosures are often lengthy paper documents that consumers find hard to understand and engage with.

“We think that one way to make disclosure more user-friendly is by encouraging and facilitating the use of online disclosure.”

But ASIC notes there have been practical difficulties in delivering disclosure documents online, because the provider has to be satisfied on reasonable grounds that the client or their agent has received the document.

If a client had to take further action to retrieve the disclosure it could be argued that the document had not been sent. Such issues have discouraged companies from using electronic delivery.

The guide states that companies can send documents electronically and may also send clients a notice with a hyperlink or reference to a website address with the disclosure.

It says clients have to agree to receive communications electronically, and having the client confirm receipt of the information would satisfy the “reasonable grounds” requirement.

ASIC says an advantage of online disclosure for clients is that it can incorporate more engaging forms of media and can be interactive.

It says the documents should be easy to retrieve and read and clients should be able to keep a copy to prove which version of the disclosure they relied on.