ASIC's order broadly mirrors the European tiers: 30:1 on major currency pairs, 20:1 on non-major pairs, gold and major indices, 10:1 on other commodities and minor indices, 5:1 on shares, and 2:1 on crypto-asset CFDs. It also requires a 50% margin-close-out-rule, negative-balance-protection and restrictions on inducements.
The change mattered beyond Australia because a large number of brokers used Australian licences to serve international clients at several hundred to one. Many responded by routing non-Australian clients to group entities in other jurisdictions, which is a common pattern described in offshore-broker.
Australia retains a professional and wholesale client route with different thresholds from the European one, so the same firm can offer very different leverage to two clients on the same instrument.
Example: a retail Australian client trading AUD 100,000 of AUD/USD posts about 3.33% under the cap. Before 2021 the same client might have posted 0.5% at 200:1.
Related: esma-leverage-caps, offshore-broker, margin-close-out-rule, negative-balance-protection