An Australian Market Licence is granted under the Corporations Act 2001 and authorises the holder to operate a licensed financial market in Australia. A Tier 2 licence is specifically designed for markets that operate on a non-continuous basis, meaning transactions are structured as discrete, event-driven liquidity events rather than continuous open-market trading.

FCX is the only entity in Australia to hold a Tier 2 market licence covering unlisted equities (company shares) and interests in managed investment schemes structured as unit trusts. This specifically addresses the private market, where companies and fund managers want to facilitate secondary trading among securityholders without the obligations that come with a public listing.

Under the Market Licence, FCX is authorised to admit securities to its market and facilitate the trading of those securities between eligible participants. This includes wholesale participants transacting on their own behalf and retail participants seeking to dispose of their holdings. The structured, event-driven nature of FCX’s market means companies retain control over when, how, and at what price liquidity occurs.

FCX operates two distinct transaction structures under this licence: a Tender Market, where issuers offer fixed or multi-price liquidity events with full control over pricing and allocations; and an Auction Market, where the FCX algorithm solves for maximum executable volume with full price and volume discovery for all participants.

A Clearing and Settlement Facility Licence authorises the holder to operate a facility that clears and settles financial transactions in Australia. Clearing is the process by which matched trades are confirmed and obligations are calculated between buyers and sellers. Settlement is the transfer of legal title from seller to buyer, accompanied by the corresponding transfer of funds. Together, clearing and settlement are the backbone of any functional financial market.

In Australia’s public markets, this function has historically been the exclusive domain of ASX’s clearing and settlement infrastructure. FCX’s CS Facility Licence changes that. It is the first time in Australia that a licensed alternative to the ASX has existed for clearing and settlement, and it has been built specifically for the private market.

FCX’s clearing and settlement infrastructure is powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT), enabling atomic settlement. Atomic settlement means that the transfer of securities and the transfer of funds occur simultaneously and instantaneously, with finality. There is no T+2 delay. There is no manual reconciliation. There is no risk of one leg of a transaction completing without the other.

Traditional clearing and settlement processes involve multiple intermediaries, multiple reconciliation steps, and a settlement window of two business days. FCX collapses that process to near-instantaneous completion, with an immutable, auditable record of every transaction created at the moment of settlement. This minimises manual document signing, reduces counterparty risk, and removes the administrative burden that has historically made private market transactions slow, costly, and opaque.