Fraud Alert
A survey of 280 scam victims by consumer group CHOICE has found they are left carrying the burden of scams after big businesses like telcos, tech platforms and banks fail to step up and protect them. 61% of respondents said they had lost confidence in doing financial transactions online. The survey results, detailed in CHOICE’s…
Read More Passing the Buck: Scam Victims Carrying Unfair Burden
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The Honourable Amanda Rishworth beamed into the recent annual Financial Counselling Australia conference in Perth a day after the budget announcement with some welcome news for the financial counselling sector. The Government will invest around $23 million over four years and ongoing, to provide more pre-crisis and early intervention supports, taking the total recent additional…
Read More Increased Funding for Financial Crisis and Early Intervention Support
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The industry codes will start with banks, telcos, social media, digital messaging and search advertising services, and will require these groups to have measures in place to prevent, detect, disrupt, respond and report scams.
This will be complemented by strong regulator enforcement action, penalties for non?compliance, and victim compensation where wrongdoing occurs.
Read More Albanese Government to Introduce Mandatory Anti-Scam Industry Codes
Have your say on Centrepay
The Albanese Government has renewed its commitment to Centrepay reform, today announcing a range of short- and long-term priorities to improve the program. Australians who rely on Services Australia’s direct bill paying service Centrepay are encouraged to join advocates, business and other stakeholders to share their views and experiences as part of a nation-wide call…
Read More Community Consultation on Centrepay Reform
Infographic on the ASIC report. Infographic and text-only version can be found at https://asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2024-releases/24-104mr-asic-report-australians-need-better-hardship-support-from-their-lenders/
Some home loan lenders have made accessing financial assistance so difficult that more than one in three (35%) Australians dropped out of the application process at least once, according to a new ASIC report. The report, Hardship, hard to get help: Lenders fall short in financial hardship support (REP 783) outlines findings from ASIC’s review of 10…
Read More ASIC Report Highlights Industry Hardship Failures
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Consumers’ Federation of Australia (CFA) and CHOICE has made a submission to the Productivity Commission about future National Competition Policy reforms. The submission stresses the need to analyse potential policy reforms with a focus on their effects on consumers and households, urging the Commission to prioritise understanding how different groups might be affected. The submission’s…
Read More Productivity Commission National Competition Policy Reforms Submission
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The 14 recommendations of a Senate Select Committee inquiry into supermarket prices included several aimed at increasing the transparency of retail grocery prices for consumers. These recommendations included (in Recommendation 9 ) that: The Australian Government amend the Unit Pricing Code made under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, so that supermarkets are required to:…
Read More Senate Supermarket Inquiry Recommends Grocery Price Transparency
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The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services commenced an inquiry into the systems and regulatory framework relating to financial abuse at the start of April 2024. The period for written submissions is now half-way through and will officially end on 14 June 2024. Submissions can be made publicly but the committee is also…
Read More Financial Abuse Inquiry – 1 month left for written submissions
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A rise in reported breaches of the industry Code of Practice indicates better reporting from customer-owned banking institutions but also a sign of the need for improvements in reporting and remediation. The Annual Data Report from the Customer Owned Banking Code Compliance Committee (COBCCC), which covers the 2022-23 reporting period, shows that the number of customer…
Read More Customer Owned Banks Urged to Continue Improving Reporting Practices
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The general insurance industry continues to struggle meeting claims handling timeframes according to the latest report from the General Insurance Code Governance Committee (CGC). The Annual Data and Compliance Report, published today, highlights more than 45,000 claims handling breaches of the industry Code of Practice in the 2022-23 reporting period, an increase of 16%. Chair…
Read More Insurers Continue to Struggle Meeting Claims Timeframes
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The 2023 Life Insurance Code of Practice (the Life Insurance Code) introduced a requirement for insurers to have family violence policies available online for their customers. For many life insurers this will be the first publicly available written policy indicating how they will support customers experiencing family violence. Family violence – in the form of…
Read More Financial Rights Publishes Report on Best Practice in Life Insurer Family Violence Policies
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The United States of America’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has published a new report, Price Complexity in Laboratory Markets, which indicates that complex pricings, or costs separated into various sub-prices, are typically more expensive and harder to compare – leading to consumers paying more. Based on the CFPB’s previous research, this increased complexity and…
Read More US Consumer Protection Body Publishes Research Finding Higher Price Complexity Leads to Consumers Paying More
