After months of saying there’s still time for businesses to apply for their Australian financial services licences (AFSL), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has finally announced that time is running out. If applications aren’t received by December 10, there’s no guarantee they will be processed in time for the March 11 2004 start-up. 

So what are intermediaries’ biggest application problems? Pauline Vamos, ASIC’s Director Licensing & Business Operations, says entities like general insurance brokers need to “focus more intently” on their classifications of retail and wholesale clients and spend more time examining general AFSL definitions.