Check an ASIC AFS licence.

TrueBroker is a free broker safety checker, and this page is its register guide for Australia. Australian brokers operate under an AFS licence, and ASIC’s registers are public; the search takes minutes once you know which number to demand.

Where is the register?

Use Moneysmart’s professional registers or ASIC Connect and search for the Australian financial services (AFS) licensee. ASIC also publishes the full licensee register as open data, roughly 6,500 rows, which is what our own pipeline checks against.

What do you match?

The AFS licence number the broker quotes belongs to the entity named in its terms, not a lookalike
The licence is current and its authorisations cover derivatives or securities as sold
The Australian entity is the one you contract with: many groups serve non Australian clients from an offshore entity instead

What are the traps?

The entity switch is the one to watch. A group advertises its ASIC licence, then signs non Australian customers with a Seychelles or Vanuatu company from the same brand, and the AFS protections never apply to that account. Read the account opening terms and match the legal entity, not the brand.

THE SHORT VERSION

Demand the AFS number, match it to the exact entity on ASIC’s register, and confirm that entity is the one on your account agreement. The full method is in check a broker. The other registers work the same way: FCA, CySEC and FSCA. What a Seychelles or BVI licence proves is a much shorter list.