AFS licence in Australia

About This Company

A brand-new Australian financial services licence (AFSL) for payments and FX is for sale, with no audit required yet and professional indemnity insurance already in place. The seller says the company can handle payments and FX straight away. Staying on after the sale is the offer from the responsible manager and the director, which the seller says keeps operations running and the licence valid without new compliance hires. What the licence authorises, in the seller's account: general advice on non-cash payment products and foreign exchange contracts; dealing in those same products, whether by issuing them, applying for them, acquiring, changing or disposing of them, or by acting for another person; and making a market in FX contracts for retail and wholesale clients. In practice the seller reads that as currency exchange and conversion, prepaid and card-related products, digital wallets and payments, moving money for customers, payment processing for clients, intermediary work on payment and FX deals, buying, selling or arranging FX contracts, and quoting rates directly to customers. Locking FX rates overnight and swap contracts used for payment or remittance are said to be expressly allowed. There is a limit. This is an authorisation for conventional payments and FX alone. Crypto work would need its own AUSTRAC registration as a DCE, covering fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat exchange, and some firms hold both. Practical points from the seller: operations can start after the ownership change and ASIC notification, no compliance obligations are pending, and the first audit follows the standard ASIC timeline from the financial year-end. Insurance is active, but renewal falls to the buyer. Included in the sale: the licence, the insurance, the existing corporate structure and, if the buyer wishes, retention of the two existing office-holders. Costs of legal diligence and of ASIC's handling of the change are extra. The Atlas lists the Australian financial services licence under the Corporations Act 2001. A change of control is triggered when a person gains or loses the capacity to cast, or control the casting of, more than 50% of votes at a general meeting, or holds more than half the issued share capital of a licensee. Authorisation is domestic and does not passport.