Suspending your AFS licence

There may be circumstances in which you need to request that ASIC suspend your Australian financial services (AFS) licence. For example:

1. if a key person responsible manager plays an integral role in your financial services business and is temporarily unavailable, which means the licensee is unable to meet its organisational competence requirements in the responsible manager's absence
2. if you are unable to comply with a legal requirement or condition of your licence.

To request suspension of your licence, complete the request for suspension and write a covering letter that explains in detail the reasons that you require suspension of your licence and includes all your contact details (postal address, email address and telephone number). The covering letter should clearly set out:

• your licence number
• that you want ASIC to suspend your AFS licence
• the period that you wish your licence to be suspended
• the reason(s) for suspension
• any related bodies corporate that are regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) (including their Australian Company Number (ACN) and/or Australian Business Number (ABN)), details of their APRA status (i.e. whether or not they are an authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI)) and whether any activities they undertake will be prevented by the licence suspension
• details of any managed investment schemes for which you act as responsible entity
• details of any internal or external dispute(s) that have not been fully resolved
• whether you will accept notice of the suspension by email and, if so, a valid email address
• a valid postal address for receipt of documents from ASIC.

It is likely that, as a condition of your licence suspension, we will require you to maintain professional indemnity (PI) insurance and membership of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) during the period of suspension, if you have provided services to retail clients.

If you have engaged a third party to assist with the suspension, please provide a letter authorising that party to act on your behalf regarding the suspension. Please note that only authorised persons can sign the request for suspension.

Email the request for suspension, the covering letter and (if applicable) the third party authorisation letter to Licensing.AFSLproofs@asic.gov.au. When we receive your request we will issue a fee invoice. We will not process the suspension until the fee has been paid.

Alternatively, you can send the request for suspension, along with the covering letter, a cheque for the relevant fee and (if applicable) the third party authorisation letter, by mail to:

Australian Securities and Investments Commission
Licensing
GPO Box 9827 
Melbourne VIC 3001

For details of the fee, see Information Sheet 30 Fees for commonly lodged documents (INFO 30). The fee is listed under ‘Lodge a document under Ch 7 which does not have a fee specified elsewhere’ in the ‘Other financial services matters’ table under ‘Financial services'.

What happens after we receive your suspension request?

We assess your request to ensure that there are no outstanding matters that preclude suspension of your licence.

To expedite this process, please complete all relevant areas of the request for suspension, and ensure that all actions required by you are finalised before you submit it.

Outstanding financial statements and auditor’s reports

Even though you have asked ASIC to suspend your licence, you must still lodge Form FS70 Australian financial services licensee profit and loss statement and balance sheet and Form FS71 Auditor’s report for AFS licensee for any financial year that ends before the date the licence is suspended. Therefore, if we receive your suspension request toward the end of a financial year, we may not finalise the request until the next financial year, and you will need to lodge financial statements and an auditor’s report for a further financial year.

We will normally require, as a condition of the suspension, you to lodge financial statements and an auditor’s report for any financial year that falls within the period of suspension.

What happens after we approve your suspension request?

We will send you a letter when we suspend your licence and publish a notice of the suspension in the ASIC Gazette.