Journal

Posted April 17, 2020

Posted By Meghann Cannon

The real, no BS cost of having your own AFSL.

Published 20 January, 2019

You wouldn’t believe some of the narrative we hear around AFSL applications and compliance. There are some tall stories getting around, some that have been relayed to us include:

  • It will cost you $1 million to have your own AFSL;
  • Compliance costs that are quoted upfront are just the tip of the iceberg, they will get you on board and then you’ll find there are thousands of dollars of extra cost; and
  • the golden oldie, “your business is going to get drowned in the cost of compliance if you go out alone.”

These are just some of the ones we have heard and there are undoubtedly loads more floating about the financial services stratosphere! So in the name of transparency (because that’s what we do at Kit) we thought we would break down the average cost for our clients of both applying for and maintaining their AFSL in a compliant state. Upfront and ongoing costs, no smoke and mirrors, no add ons, basically no BS, just the actual cost. How can we be so confident that this will be the real cost for 99.99% of you? Because we have done this, many, many times for a wide and varied range of businesses.

Maybe not as bad as you thought?

Maybe less than you are already spending?

How do we keep it cost effective for our clients?

We utilise the concept of the “sharing economy” to keep the cost down and experience great for our clients. Because of our focus, business structure and delivery model:

  • we have developed a deep knowledge base in financial services – we’re not charging you for us learning along the way
  • we have a great bank of templates – we are customising templates from those we have already prepared for other businesses similar to yours
  • we’ll generally know the answers to the questions you’ll ask – most of the questions you ask through our help desk have already been asked by one of our clients around Australia so you’re not paying us to go and find out the answer
  • you pay on subscription – we know on average our cost for looking after a client like you. Some months you need us more, some months less but overall we are confident it evens out and you pay the right amount for the value you get and we get the right amount for the value we provide. The best thing is, you know exactly what your compliance related legal costs are going to be for the year, no surprises, no sneaky invoices.
  • we have low overheads and keep things lean – we are boutique financial services specialists, you’re not paying to prop up underperforming teams in a different area of the firm, or 20 admin staff to photocopy and make coffee. Its just us in a nice but small office, making our own coffee and going pretty paper free – you would be surprised at how much more cost effective it is!
  • we embrace technology – and we are working on more, so you’re not paying for an admin person or a junior lawyer to sit over basic tasks, the technology does those tasks, much quicker and therefore much cheaper.

Basically, we work efficiently but instead of keeping the cost savings of that efficiency in our pockets, we pass it onto you.

You can find a definition of the sharing economy here: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sharing-economy

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