The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC ) announced this Thursday that it has published an assessment report on licensing and professional registration applications between July 2017 until June of 2018 in the country.
Between the one year period, the financial regulator found that less than half of the 2,879 total applications considered were approved.
Out of the total applications, which includes firms wanting to receive an Australian financial services (AFS) license, credit license or professional registrations, 48 percent or 1,383 were approved. The other 62 percent of the applicants were still approved but in a different form than what was originally applied for.
In Australia, brokerages, trading venues, and financial firms need to acquire an AFS license to legally operate within the country.
Specifically, the number of applications for AFS licenses was 1,728 during the 1st of July 2017 until the 30th of June 2018. From this, 758 were approved, which is a 44 percent success rate. Other applications include credit license and registrations.
Brokers Should Allow More Than 150 Days to Acquire an AFS Licence
As for the amount of time it takes to receive a license, this depends on the complexity of the business structure. For new AFS licenses, the number of applications finalized within 150 days was 74 percent. For application finalized with 240 days, the success rate was 88 percent. This is important for brokerages and financial firms to keep in mind when thinking of opening up operations in Australia.
For AFS license variations, 75 percent of applications were finalized within 150 days, whereas 86 percent of applications were completed with 240 days, leaving 14 percent unfinished in this time period.
Warren Day, Executive Director at ASIC
Source: LinkedIn
Commenting on the process, Warren Day, Executive Director, Assessment & Intelligence at ASIC said: “ASIC's Licensing function provides the first gateway to ensuring applicants seeking an Australian financial services (AFS) licence or Australian credit licence (ACL), and auditor-related professional registration meet minimum standards to offer regulated services. We help protect consumers by ensuring an appropriate level of scrutiny is applied to these applications.”
