Regulatory status

Towemer Pty Ltd is registered in Australia, ABN 91 001 604 799, ACN 001 604 799, and holds AFSL 487918 in its own name, issued on 29 August 2016. The licence is held directly. There is no parent licensee and no dealer group above us.

What the licence permits

An AFSL is not a single permission. It is a list of authorisations, and ours covers both general and personal financial product advice to retail clients, and dealing in financial products on a client's behalf, across deposit and payment products, which covers the cash accounts and term deposits we arrange, government debt securities, securities including bonds issued by companies and banks, listed shares and exchange traded funds, managed investment schemes including managed funds, superannuation including self managed funds, retirement savings accounts, and life insurance.

The full list, written out, is in the licence section of our Financial Services Guide. Where you ask for advice on something outside it, we say so and refer you to somebody who is authorised to give it.

How to check it

You can check all of this yourself. Search the licence number on ASIC's professional registers at connectonline.asic.gov.au, and check an individual adviser on the Financial Advisers Register published through ASIC's Moneysmart service. Neither needs an account and neither costs anything.

What is not regulated

Some of what we do is not a financial service and is not regulated as one. General commentary on markets, the research notes published on this site, and factual information about how a deposit, a bond, a managed fund or a listing works are education rather than advice. Tax and estate matters are for your accountant and your solicitor: we will say when something needs one of them rather than us.

What protects you, and what does not

Four things sit behind the advice. It is worth knowing what each one covers, because the one most people assume covers investments does not.

• The Australian Financial Complaints Authority. Free to you, independent of us, and able to award compensation. Its decisions bind us if you accept them. This is the route that matters most in practice.
• Professional indemnity insurance. Section 912B of the Corporations Act requires a licensee advising retail clients to hold arrangements for compensating them for loss caused by a breach of its obligations. We hold cover that satisfies it, and the cover extends to advisers who have since left.
• The Compensation Scheme of Last Resort. Where AFCA has made a determination in your favour for personal financial advice and it has not been paid, the scheme can pay up to $150,000. It is a backstop for an unpaid determination, not a guarantee against loss.
• The Financial Claims Scheme. A government guarantee on deposits with an authorised deposit taking institution (a bank, building society or credit union), up to $250,000 per account holder per institution. A cash account or term deposit your adviser places for you is opened in your name with the bank, so it is covered on the same terms as any other deposit you hold with that bank, and counts toward the same $250,000. It does not cover investments. Bonds, managed funds, shares and listings are outside it.

None of these protects you from a market falling. They exist for the case where something has gone wrong with the advice or with the firm, not for the case where an investment has simply lost value.

If you want to complain

Tell us first, at info@towemer.com or on +61 2 8105 5227. We acknowledge within one business day and respond in writing within 30 calendar days. If that does not resolve it, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority will look at it independently and at no cost to you. The full route, with contact details and time limits, is on our complaints page.