Macquarie Group's private wealth business has more work to do in improving the way it advises clients, the corporate regulator says.
Macquarie Private Wealth agreed in January 2013 to work with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for two years to lift its operations to industry standards.
That work has resulted in significant improvements, ASIC said on Friday.
Substantial changes have been made to management, business structure, training and monitoring and supervision technology, it said.
A quarter of the advisers in Macquarie Private Wealth have left the business, and new staff were recruited to support the advisers complying with their obligations.
But there remains issues with the quality of the records of advice given, ASIC said.
"While client advice files have shown a significant improvement since the enforceable undertaking's start, the level of gaps in the advice files needs further improvement to allow (Macquarie Private Wealth) to better manage its advice risk," it said.
Macquarie Private Wealth will therefore work with ASIC for another year to assess the quality of its advice and files, as well as carry out further testing on projects implemented over the past two years.
The corporate regulator's update on its work with Macquarie comes amid concerns about the practices of financial advisers after fraud and misconduct was uncovered among planners at Commonwealth Bank between 2006 and 2010.
CBA and Macquarie are reviewing their past activities to identify if clients have lost funds because of misconduct.
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