Financial watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, is suing a subsidiary of comparison website Finder.com for allegedly providing unlicensed financial services and breaching product disclosure requirements.

The corporate regulator has started civil proceedings in the Federal Court against Finder Wallet Pty Ltd, in relation to the website’s crypto-asset related product Finder Earn.

It’s alleged the website provided financial product advice without proper licensing and also failed to comply with design and distribution obligations.

Commission deputy chair Sarah Court said the industry had been put on notice.

“This is ASIC’s third recent action against a firm offering a crypto-asset related product that we consider to be a financial product,” she said in a statement on Thursday.

“Our message to industry is clear – just because an offer involves a crypto-asset related product does not guarantee it will fall outside the current regulatory regime.”

It is also alleged the Finder Earn product, which launched in November last year and has since been scrapped, was essentially a debenture or debt instrument.

“We have just learnt of ASIC’s decision to commence legal proceedings against Finder Wallet in regards to Finder Earn,” a Finder.com spokesman said in a statement.

“We do not share ASIC’s view that Finder Earn can be regarded as a debenture. Since Finder Earn was launched in November 2021, we have proactively engaged with ASIC and have cooperated fully with all ASIC requests for information.”

The company said all Finder Earn customers’ capital had been returned in full.

It marks the third lawsuit brought by ASIC against a cryptocurrency business in two months.

– AAP