Australian Financial Services License in Australia
Level 1
Australia0
People viewed this LicenseLicense Type
Australian Financial Services License
RegulatorASIC
Share CapitalN/A
Deadlines
8 to 12 months(approx.)
Estimated Market Price
From €60,000
Level 1
AustraliaEstimated Market Price
From €60,000
0
People viewed this LicenseLicense Type
Australian Financial Services License
RegulatorASIC
Share CapitalN/A
Deadlines
8 to 12 months (approx.)
Level 2
License Details
Explore full requirements, allowed activities, taxation, and operational scope.
Permitted Activities
• Providing financial product advice
• Dealing in financial products (securities, derivatives, FX)
• Operating registered managed investment schemes
• Custody and depositary services
• Financial planning and investment advisory services
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear, concise info to help you understand the process!
A matrix, not a number. Section 913B of the Corporations Act 2001 authorises the licensee to provide the financial services specified in the licence, and the schedule crosses specified financial services against specified financial products — a firm can be authorised to provide financial product advice in securities and derivatives while being authorised to deal only in superannuation. Anything outside that grid is unlicensed conduct under section 911A. Adding a service or a product class means an application to vary under section 914A, with its own competence and financial-resource evidence. Read the schedule, not the licence number.
No — and that makes Australia unusually easy. There is no ASIC pre-approval and no fit-and-proper vetting of an incoming owner. The obligation is post-completion: the licensee notifies ASIC of a change of control through the Regulatory Portal within 30 business days, under section 912DA, with control taking its meaning from section 910B. No fee, no assessment period, no discretion to block. A share sale of an AFSL company therefore has no regulatory condition precedent — which is the opposite of the position in every EU jurisdiction on this list.
No. An AFSL is granted to a named person or body corporate and Chapter 7 contains no mechanism to assign, transfer or novate it — ASIC's only routes are granting a new licence under section 913B and varying an existing one under section 914A. The licence cannot be lifted out of the company. That is precisely why the 30-business-day notification is the whole of the regulatory process in an AFSL deal: the only way to acquire the permission is to acquire the entity that holds it, and the entity carries its history with it.
It depends on what it does with client assets. Every licensee must be solvent with total assets exceeding total liabilities and must meet a cash needs requirement — Option 1 being a buffer of 20% of the greater of projected or prior-year three-month cash outflow. A licensee holding more than AUD 100,000 of client money or property in total must hold at least AUD 50,000 in surplus liquid funds. Where custody is the core business the test is net tangible assets of the greater of AUD 10 million or 10% of average revenue; an incidental custody provider faces the greater of AUD 150,000 or 10% of average revenue.
Losing the people the licence rests on. Organisational competence under section 912A(1)(e) is demonstrated through responsible managers, each meeting one of the five options in RG 105 — an industry standard plus three years' experience in the past five, individual assessment plus five years in the past eight, a relevant degree plus a short course plus three years, a diploma-level industry qualification plus three years, or a written submission. ASIC expects at least two. Replace the responsible managers post-completion without equivalent coverage and the company breaches section 912A(1)(e) even though nobody touched the licence.
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