Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
Australia's corporate, markets and financial services regulator, which licenses brokers through the AFS licence regime and caps retail CFD leverage at 30:1.
ASIC registers companies, licenses financial services providers through the Australian Financial Services licence, and enforces the Corporations Act including insider trading and market manipulation provisions. Australian brokers quote their AFSL number the way US brokers quote a finra membership.
Its product intervention order on contracts for difference limits retail leverage to 30:1 on major currency pairs, 20:1 on major indices, 10:1 on commodities other than gold, and 2:1 on crypto, with standardised margin close-out and negative balance protection. Design and distribution obligations require issuers to define a target market for each product and monitor whether it is reaching that market.
Consumer complaints go to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority rather than to ASIC directly.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
Margin and leverage. A $5,000 deposit can control a $100,000 position, which is 20:1 leverage. Because the loss is measured on the full $100,000, a 2.5% move against you halves the deposit and brings a margin call, and a 5% move uses all of it.
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