Tools, not advice

In Australia, giving someone a specific recommendation about a specific financial product (buy this super fund, take out this loan, invest in this ETF) requires an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) or authorisation under one. Even generic financial-product advice that a reasonable person would rely on can trigger AFSL rules.

NestWise deliberately doesn’t hold an AFSL and doesn’t give personalised financial advice. The choice is structural — it’s not that we haven’t got around to it. Building the product without an AFSL means we can move fast + charge $20/year, but it also constrains what NestWise can say to you.

• Calculates your family entitlements (FTB A/B, CCS, PPL, Newborn Supplement, Rent Assistance, Age Pension estimate) using published Services Australia + ATO rates.
• Estimates your tax refund, marginal rate, PAYG, HELP repayment, Medicare Levy, and offset eligibility using ATO formulas.
• Tracks your bills, cashflow, budget vs actual, deductions, super contributions, and net worth so you can see the shape of your money.
• Watches deadlines (bill due dates, lodgement cutoffs, indexation dates, consent expiry, insurance renewal, kindy enrolment) and surfaces them before they surprise you.
• Points you at the Services Australia / ATO / gov.au page you can verify anything against.

• Recommend a super fund, ETF, insurance policy, loan product, or credit card.
• Tell you whether to salary sacrifice, refinance, switch funds, drop private health cover, or claim a specific deduction.
• Use “optimal” / “best” / “recommended” / “you should” language anywhere in the product. If you spot us slipping, email hello@nestwise.net.au and we’ll fix it.
• Send you cross-sells or push you toward third-party products for a commission. We take no referral revenue.
• Auto-lodge, auto-transfer, auto-invest, or auto-claim on your behalf. Every action is initiated by you.

When NestWise shows a number, treat it as a well-referenced estimate. It’s the input to your decision, not the decision itself:

• Before you lodge or claim, verify against the Services Australia / ATO page linked from the number.
• Before you make a big money decision (refinance, super consolidation, career break), talk to a licensed adviser or accountant who knows your full picture.
• NestWise is designed to make those conversations shorter + more informed — not to replace them.

• Auditable rates. Every $ figure in the product traces back to a rate + FY in lib/rates.ts. When indexation changes it, we bump the file + regression-test every downstream calc.
• ComplianceBand renders on every paid-tier calc surface with the “Not financial advice” framing + a link to this page.
• Terms clause 5 pins the same framing as the load-bearing legal statement.
• No advice language is a discipline reflected in our internal writing guidelines — enforced in review, corrected on shipping.
• Guides at /guides all carry an amber “not advice” disclaimer band.
• AI assistant (see /legal/ai-transparency) is guardrail-restricted to public guides and can’t produce personalised recommendations.

If NestWise ever moves toward AFSL-authorised advice (either directly or as an authorised representative of a licensee), it would be a substantial change: new consent screens, updated terms, and a public post explaining what changes for you and what doesn’t. We’d only cross that line deliberately, with legal review, and with clear opt-in from you.