New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has granted IG Australia Pty Limited a new five-year exemption from several financial-reporting and audit requirements, allowing the derivatives broker to continue using Australian accounting standards rather than preparing separate New Zealand-compliant financial statements.
The exemption, published on October 12, 2026, takes effect on October 14 and remains valid until October 13, 2031. It replaces certain provisions of an earlier exemption issued in 2022 that expired on September 30, 2026.
The decision provides regulatory relief to IG Australia, which holds both an Australian Financial Services Licence and a New Zealand derivatives issuer licence. However, it does not exempt the company from New Zealand derivatives licensing or its broader conduct obligations.
Instead, the FMA has concluded that Australia’s financial-reporting framework and regulatory oversight provide sufficiently equivalent safeguards, making additional New Zealand-specific reporting requirements unnecessarily costly.
FMA Allows IG Australia to Use Australian Accounting Standards
Under the Financial Markets Conduct (IG Australia Pty Limited) Exemption Notice 2026, the broker receives targeted relief from provisions of New Zealand’s Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013.
Ordinarily, overseas financial-market reporting entities must comply with New Zealand generally accepted accounting practice and, in certain circumstances, prepare financial statements covering their New Zealand operations as though those activities were conducted by a locally incorporated company.
The new notice allows IG Australia to prepare its financial statements under Australian generally accepted accounting principles, which are based on Australian equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards.
It also permits those statements to be audited by an auditor qualified under Australian law rather than requiring a separately qualified New Zealand FMC auditor.
The relief applies to the accounting period ending December 31, 2026, and subsequent annual accounting periods through December 31, 2030.
IG Australia must continue preparing audited financial statements and complying with applicable Australian reporting requirements. It must also notify the New Zealand Registrar when filing accounts that rely on the exemption.
New Zealand Revenue, Expenses, Assets and Liabilities Must Still Be Disclosed
The exemption does not eliminate financial disclosure relating to IG Australia’s New Zealand business.
Instead of producing a separate set of accounts, IG must include specific financial information about those operations in the notes accompanying its Australian financial statements.
The required disclosures cover four items: total revenue, total expenses, total assets and total liabilities attributable to the New Zealand business.
Each figure must be accompanied by a narrative explanation describing how it was determined, with the disclosures audited as part of the company’s financial statements.
The broker must also explain that it is relying on the exemption rather than preparing standalone New Zealand business accounts.
For derivatives offers, the relevant New Zealand register must continue to contain IG Australia’s most recently completed Australian-GAAP financial statements and the corresponding auditor’s report. The register must explain why Australian accounting standards are being used instead of New Zealand standards.
These requirements preserve access to financial information while removing the obligation to prepare a second complete set of locally compliant accounts.
Exemption Depends on Australian Licensing and New Zealand Tax Status
The FMA has attached several conditions to the relief.
IG Australia must retain its Australian Financial Services Licence, while the Australian Securities and Investments Commission must remain a member of the International Organization of Securities Commissions and a full signatory to its information-sharing memorandum.
The exemption from preparing separate New Zealand business financial statements also depends on IG Australia having no New Zealand tax liability.
The company must not change its existing business model or operating structure in a way that could create such a tax liability during the covered accounting periods.
If an Australian auditor identifies noncompliance with the applicable reporting requirements, IG Australia must provide the auditor’s report and relevant financial statements to the FMA and New Zealand’s External Reporting Board within seven working days.
The regulator said it was satisfied that Australian financial reporting and audit supervision were of sufficiently high quality to provide investors with broadly equivalent information.
It also concluded that producing additional New Zealand statements would impose costs exceeding their likely benefits, particularly because the company’s operating structure does not currently create a New Zealand tax liability.
New Notice Changes Parts of IG Australia’s Previous 2022 Relief
The previous exemption came into force in March 2022 and covered accounting periods ending from May 2022 through May 2026.
The 2026 replacement changes the applicable financial year-ends to December and updates several provisions governing reporting and auditing.
There is also a potentially important difference in scope. The 2022 notice contained separate exemptions concerning assurance engagements under regulations 248 and 249 of the Financial Markets Conduct Regulations, including provisions allowing an overseas auditor to assess certain derivatives-issuer processes and controls.
Those particular exemptions are not included in the new 2026 notice. However, the replacement does not explain whether the underlying regulatory requirements or IG Australia’s compliance arrangements have otherwise changed.
The FMA describes the new instrument as continuing only certain exemptions from the previous framework, rather than renewing the entire 2022 notice unchanged.
No operational changes for IG Australia’s New Zealand trading customers were announced alongside the decision.
Why New Zealand Is Accepting Australian Reporting Oversight
The more interesting aspect of the decision is what it says about cross-border financial supervision.
IG Australia operates within IG Group Holdings plc, the London-listed brokerage group with subsidiaries serving different jurisdictions. Requiring every overseas operation to reproduce substantially similar financial accounts under slightly different national standards can generate significant administrative costs.
The FMA is effectively acknowledging that more reporting does not always mean better investor protection.
If an overseas regulator already requires sufficiently rigorous audited statements, duplicating the same work locally may add limited useful information.
That approach contrasts with situations where brokers need to establish a larger local regulatory infrastructure. For example, Trading 212’s expansion of its German compliance and regulatory reporting operations illustrates how operating through a locally regulated entity can require additional reporting personnel and oversight systems.
IG Australia’s exemption reflects a different arrangement: maintaining New Zealand regulatory authorization while relying on an Australian reporting framework accepted by the local regulator.
Investors Still Need to Understand Which Regulator Protects Them
The exemption should not be confused with permission to operate without financial supervision.
IG Australia remains a licensed New Zealand derivatives issuer. Its exemption relates to specified reporting and audit obligations, not the removal of licensing, customer protection or trading conduct requirements.
This distinction is particularly relevant in the global forex and contracts-for-difference industry, where the same brokerage brand may operate through different licensed entities.
As explained in Dave Finances’ analysis of how forex broker regulation changes across jurisdictions, investors need to identify the legal entity serving their account rather than relying solely on the reputation of the broader brokerage group.
The FMA’s decision does not establish that Australian and New Zealand requirements are identical in every respect. It establishes that the regulator considers the specific Australian financial-reporting and audit arrangements sufficiently equivalent for the purposes of this exemption.
The distinction between regulatory filings and actual customer protections also matters. A separate FXTF disclosure concerning commodity-CFD client assets in Japan illustrated how the legal arrangements protecting client funds can differ from what customers might infer from a broker’s published documentation.
IG Australia’s exemption raises no comparable allegation. It simply reinforces why investors should distinguish financial-reporting requirements from the rules governing custody, segregation, capital and customer treatment.
Reduced Compliance Costs Come With Continuing Transparency Obligations
For IG Australia, the clearest benefit is avoiding duplication in financial reporting and external auditing.
That could reduce accounting costs, simplify the preparation of financial statements and allow the company to maintain a common reporting framework across its Australian and New Zealand activities.
However, neither the exemption notice nor the regulator’s explanation quantifies the expected savings. It would therefore be premature to assign a financial benefit or suggest that the decision will materially affect IG Group’s earnings.
From an investor’s perspective, the requirement to disclose New Zealand revenue, expenses, assets and liabilities remains particularly useful. Those figures can provide insight into the local operation even without a separately audited New Zealand entity-level statement.
The conditions also create a boundary around future changes. If IG Australia’s tax position, business structure or licensing circumstances change, the company may no longer qualify for some or all of the reporting relief.
That limits the extent to which the exemption can be treated as permanent regulatory flexibility.
The most useful next disclosure from IG would clarify the size of its New Zealand derivatives business, the practical effect of the changes from the 2022 notice and whether the replacement requires any adjustments to its assurance arrangements.
For now, the FMA’s decision represents a targeted reduction in reporting duplication rather than a change to IG Australia’s authorization to serve New Zealand clients. Its broader significance lies in the regulator’s willingness to rely on equivalent overseas financial reporting while retaining conditions designed to preserve local transparency.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
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