Managed investment schemes and ARSNs

A managed investment scheme is an arrangement in which investors pool money or contribute to a common enterprise and leave day-to-day control to someone else, in exchange for a share of the returns. Unit trusts, property syndicates, mortgage funds, agricultural schemes, serviced strata schemes and time-share resorts are all managed investment schemes. Schemes offered to retail investors must be registered with ASIC under Chapter 5C of the Corporations Act 2001, and each registered scheme receives an Australian Registered Scheme Number (ARSN). ASIC keeps a register entry for every registered scheme in the same database as companies, so a scheme extract looks and behaves like a company extract with a few deliberate differences.

ARSN

An ARSN is a nine-digit identifier with the same check digit algorithm as an ACN and is displayed in the same three-by-three format, for example 099 999 999. The API accepts an ARSN anywhere an ACN is accepted; pass it as {id} to GET /v1/companies/{id} and the response is a company object whose numberType is code ARSN. A scheme has an organisation type of MISM (Managed Investment Scheme). Use types[]=MISM or the trusts-and-schemes scope on the company search to find schemes by name.

The responsible entity and other scheme roles

A registered scheme has no directors of its own. It is operated by a responsible entity, a public company holding an Australian financial services licence that authorises it to operate the scheme. The responsible entity holds scheme property on trust for members and is responsible for everything the scheme does. ASIC records the responsible entity as an office holder of the scheme with role RN, with the responsible entity's ACN and name as an organisation party.

All of these are part of the scheme's company extract: purchase one with POST /v1/companies/{id}/extracts using the ARSN, then GET /v1/companies/{id}/officeholders reads it for free, and filtering with role[]=RN gives you the current operator in one call. See purchasing. From the other direction, a responsible entity's own relationships, read from a relational extract of the responsible entity, list every scheme it operates under role RN in rolesHeld[].

Scheme categories

ASIC classifies each registered scheme into one or more categories that describe what it invests in. A scheme can carry up to four, returned in the company object's schemeCategories[] as an array of coded values from the scheme categories table:

Categories such as PRCV and PP marked "To Be Converted" are legacy values from schemes registered under the earlier prescribed interest regime that have not been reclassified.

Scheme statuses

Schemes share the organisation status table with companies but use three statuses of their own alongside REGD and DRGD:

See company status for the full table.

How a scheme extract differs from a company extract

The scheme extract is built from the same sections as a company extract, and ASIC's guidance is that wherever the extract says "organisation" you should read "scheme". The differences are:

Registered office and principal place of business addresses, the document list, and external administration documents all work as they do for companies, and current and historical extracts are purchased the same way. Because a scheme's operator is a company, the registered office recorded for the scheme is normally the responsible entity's.

Example scheme

curl https://api.asicapi.dev/v1/companies/004249987 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ASICAPI_KEY"

{
  "object": "company",
  "id": "004249987",
  "acn": null,
  "arsn": "004249987",
  "formatted": "004 249 987",
  "numberType": { "code": "ARSN", "label": "Australian Registered Scheme Number" },
  "abn": "27004249987",
  "name": "HARBOUR DIVERSIFIED PROPERTY FUND",
  "nameStartDate": "2006-11-20",
  "type": { "code": "MISM", "label": "Managed Investment Scheme" },
  "class": null,
  "subClass": null,
  "status": { "code": "REGD", "label": "Registered" },
  "registrationDate": "2006-11-20",
  "reviewDate": null,
  "deregistration": null,
  "stateOfRegistration": null,
  "placeOfRegistration": null,
  "previousStateNumber": null,
  "controllingJurisdiction": { "code": "ASIC", "label": "Australian Securities and Investments Commission" },
  "governanceType": null,
  "disclosingEntity": null,
  "registeredCharity": false,
  "principalPlace": { "locality": "SYDNEY", "state": "NSW", "postcode": "2000" },
  "formerNames": [],
  "schemeCategories": [
    { "code": "REAL", "label": "Direct Real Property Scheme" },
    { "code": "LPTR", "label": "Listed Property Trusts" }
  ],
  "satisfiedChargesExtractSize": null,
  "meta": { "billable": false, "product": null, "requestId": "req_01J9F3Y6Z9M2U7" }
}

The id and formatted fields carry the ARSN. For a scheme registered before 1998 as a prescribed interest undertaking, previousStateNumber and placeOfRegistration would instead hold the prescribed interest number and undertaking name.

Weekly summary of new schemes

ASIC publishes a weekly list of newly registered managed investment schemes. Purchase it with POST /v1/weekly-summaries using "type": "new-schemes" and a weekStarting Monday, then read the resulting extract as often as you like; each item has sub-type MISM and a company summary carrying the scheme's ARSN and name. Fund administrators and research houses use it to keep their scheme universe current.