Banking License in Australia: How to Get | Law&Trust International

Licensing of banking activities in Australia is a procedure that credit institutions undergo in order to obtain the right to conduct banking transactions. The article will consider the features of obtaining banking license in the territory of the Australian Union.

The Australian banking sector is regulated by the Law “On Banking Activities” of 1959 and includes both banks and other financial institutions, namely: credit cooperatives, building societies that provide limited range of services similar to banking ones.

All of the above financial institutions are recognized in terms of Australian law as Authorized Deposit-taking Institutions (ADIs), which activities are subject to mandatory licensing.

Licensing of ADIs is carried out by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). The same authority issues permission for banking activities in Australia (license).

How are banking licenses issued in Australia?

License for carrying out banking activities can be obtained either by newly established bank, branch of a foreign bank or subsidiary of a foreign parent bank.

Obtaining banking

  • license in Australia takes considerably long period of time and is associated with fairly high costs. In order to estimate the cost of banking license in Australia, the most obvious example will be the requirement of legislation of the Australian Union for the amount of capital of the future bank.

     

Minimum capital to establish bank in Australia is 50 million Australian dollars (~ 38.14 million US dollars). In addition to the minimum requirement for capital, it is necessary to comply with the rule concerning availability of the regulatory capital in the bank.

Documents required to obtain banking license in Australia

When registering bank in Australia, it is necessary to provide sufficiently large number of documentation, which can be divided into the following items:

Items

  • Information on the founders of the bank, management bodies, major shareholders, initial capital;
  • Three-year business plan;
  • Information on the risk management system that the bank will use in transactions at national and international levels;
  • Information on existing or planned subsidiaries, scope and scale of their activities, ability to transfer their assets to the emerging bank;
  • Constituent documents of the legal entity for which it is planned to obtain license;
  • For foreign parent banks: brief history of the parent bank, information on its activities, financial condition of the parent bank, and others.

The competence of lawyers includes:

Law&Trust International offers the services of its specialists. International lawyers of Law&Trust Int. are ready to answer any questions concerning obtaining banking license in Australia.

  • Consulting in the field of obtaining license;
  • Accompanying the client at the stage of negotiations with the Australian state authorities;
  • Maintenance of the procedure for compiling the package of official documents;
  • Translation and certification of the documents;
  • Provision of related services, such as registration of companies in Australia and opening of bank accounts abroad.

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