At yesterday's ASIC annual forum for 2016, a panel of regulation and consumer protection experts took another look at the Financial Services Inquiry, now that some of its findings and recommendations are moving towards at least draft legislation, if not actually in place already. John Lonsdale, deputy secretary of the markets group at The Treasury, noted that the Government had taken action on 43 of the 44 recommendations from the FSI and added five more of its own after a consultation process. "That means a large number of those recommendations are in train," Lonsdale said. "Some of the key questions for the banking sector were: what does it mean for a bank to be unquestionably strong, the risk weighting crisis management measures - all those are in play at the moment."When it came to consumer protection, one of the items considered was whether ASIC should be given greater powers to intervene. Lonsdale said work was "underway on that with plans for a consultation paper later in the year." FSI chair David Murray also had a range of recommendations and comments around data, crowd sourced equity funding, Bitcoin and blockchain. This was one area where the expert panel took a variety of views as they discussed how far and how rapidly ASIC should be allowed to intervene, if products being sold were seen as "dangerous". Lonsdale surmised that the changes, when they arrive, could involve use of anything from a light touch, right through to banning a product. "But [the rules] need to make sure the regulator is very accountable," he said. Brian Salter, group general counsel at AMP Limited, predicted that "one aspect of the changes made or proposed will be for financial services firms to adopt a much more formal process the design of products and much more record-keeping for the process." With rumours of an early election abounding, Banking Day asked the panel which important pieces of FSI findings, now subject to draft legislation or consultation, were in danger of being dropped. Salter responded that "there certainly is the possibility that, with a double dissolution, some of the insurance reforms such as abolition of high up front commissions will fall off the legislative agenda."