The Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding) Bill 2016 was passed today, with 35 senators voting in favour of the legislation and 30 against.
The bill makes an amendment to the Corporations Act to “establish a framework to facilitate crowd-sourced funding offers by small unlisted public companies; provide new public companies that are eligible to crowd fund with temporary relief from certain reporting and corporate governance requirements”.
The amendment will also “enable the minister to provide that certain financial market and clearing and settlement facility operators are exempt from specified parts of the Australian market licence and clearing and settlement facility licencing regimes”.
Lobby group FinTech Australia issued a statement on Twitter describing the passage of the legislation as an “exciting development for [Australian] fintech”.
Not all members of the fintech community supported the bill.
Global crowdfunding industry figure Paul Niederer, co-founder of ASSOB, previously told Fintech Business the bill was “flawed’ and had limited appeal for businesses undergoing capital-raising projects.