The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has opened consultation on remaking two legislative instruments that provide relief from certain Australian financial services (AFS) licensing and disclosure requirements, proposing to extend them for another five years to 2031.
Both instruments, first introduced in 2016 and due to expire on 1 October 2026, relate to the AFS licensing regime underpinning Australia’s contracts for difference (CFD) industry. ASIC said the proposed changes are minor and technical, focused on clarifying wording rather than altering the substantive policy settings.
Scope of the AFS licence relief
The first instrument gives general-advice providers relief from AFS licensing rules when their advice is contained in specific documents. These are mainly explanatory statements for foreign schemes of arrangement and offer documents connected to overseas control transactions.
The second instrument exempts issuers and advisers from the requirement to present certain figures in Australian dollars in standard disclosure documents. This dollar disclosure relief is designed to ease administrative burdens where foreign currency figures are more relevant.
Under ASIC’s proposal, both carve-outs would be remade before their 1 October 2026 sunset date and rolled forward for a further five years, taking the regime through to 2031.
New coverage for discretionary mutual funds
The consultation introduces a limited expansion of the dollar disclosure exemption to cover risk products issued through discretionary mutual funds. These not-for-profit risk-sharing arrangements are used by community groups, churches and some industry associations and currently sit outside the existing relief.
ASIC characterises the proposed extension as a narrow consistency measure rather than a shift in policy. Aside from this adjustment, the regulator describes the overall package as administrative and technical.
Regulatory backdrop and consultation process
The proposal comes amid a busy regulatory period for AFS licence holders. ASIC’s no-action position for unlicensed digital asset providers is set to expire on 30 June 2026, after which crypto firms that remain unlicensed face potential civil and criminal penalties of up to 10% of annual turnover.
In fiscal 2025, ASIC granted 290 new AFS licences while cancelling or suspending 215. An enforcement campaign during the second half of 2025 resulted in a record A$583 million in penalties.
Feedback on the AFS relief proposals can be submitted to ASIC’s consultation team until 5pm AEST on 1 June. The consultation is set out in paper CS 51, titled “Proposed remake of relief from dollar disclosure reporting and AFS licensing requirements for general advice in certain exempt documents”. If implemented, the new instruments would replace the existing ones ahead of the October 2026 sunset and continue the relief framework through 2031.
