Compliance note: Information only, not legal or financial advice. Confirm your obligations with ASIC or a qualified professional before relying on this for compliance decisions.
ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, is Australia's integrated corporate, markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator. It administers the laws that determine who can sell, advise on or arrange financial products and credit in Australia, and it grants and revokes the licences those activities depend on.
ASIC's statutory remit is to "maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of the financial system and entities in it." Behind that single line sits the licensing regime every Australian financial-services or credit business operates under. If a business arranges a loan, sells an insurance policy, recommends a managed fund, runs a super fund or trades on a licensed exchange, the question of whether ASIC has authorised that activity is the first question.
The agency expanded its remit in three jumps. It started in 1991 as the Australian Securities Commission (ASC), replacing the National Companies and Securities Commission to run corporate law nationally. In 1998 it took on consumer protection in superannuation, insurance and deposit taking and was renamed the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Its current role, functions and powers sit in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. In 2010 it picked up consumer credit, finance broking, trustee companies and the supervision of trading on Australia's licensed equity, derivatives and futures markets, the remit it operates under today (the full list lives in the laws we administer).
For a mortgage broker, ASIC is the agency that grants the Australian Credit Licence, or authorises a broker as a credit representative of a licensee. It sets the conduct standards, enforces the Best Interests Duty, and runs the public register that ties a broker's website to the licence behind it. For a financial planner the equivalent is the AFS Licence, with the same enforcement teeth on top.
Where ASIC ends, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority begins. AFCA handles consumer complaints; ASIC handles licensee conduct and market supervision. The two work as parallel rails, and most ASIC-regulated firms are required to be AFCA members under their licence conditions, alongside reporting obligations directly to ASIC.
The practical implication for an Australian small business operating in any of these industries is that compliance is not optional, and ASIC is the agency you deal with first when something goes wrong. The "fit and proper person" test ASIC applies at licence application is the same test it applies when deciding whether a licence stays open. Get that wrong and the next call is from ASIC's enforcement team, not from a marketing one.