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Today (5 December) the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services will release its long-awaited report from the inquiry into the Financial Services Regulatory Framework in Relation to Financial Abuse, which commenced in April 2024. Members of the Economic Abuse Reference Group, a national network of over 50 community organisations that work with government…

Read More Community Advocates Welcome Government Report on Financial Abuse

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Consumer groups have welcomed the release of the Final Report of the Standing Committee on Economics’ Inquiry into Insurer’s responses to 2022 Major Floods. The groups have called on the insurance sector and the Insurance Council of Australia to accept all the recommendations and implement changes to their internal processes and the Code of Practice…

Read More Advocates Welcome Flood Inquiry Report, Urge Government to Act Now

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The Australian Government’s cyclone reinsurance pool has begun delivering lower premiums for some consumers in some regions facing higher risk of cyclones, the ACCC’s third insurance monitoring report has found. However, the savings generated by the reinsurance pool have been offset to varying extents by other cost increases affecting insurance markets. These costs include the broader hardening…

Read More Savings from Cyclone Reinsurance Pool Present, Offset by Cost Increases

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From the Chair of the Banking Code Compliance Committee: This year we issued three sanctions to three banks for serious and systemic breaches of the Code [relating to deceased estates]. This action underscores our commitment to hold banks accountable for the promises they make under the Code and to respond firmly where we find serious…

Read More BCCC Releases 2023-2024 Annual Report, Deceased Estates a Focus of Investigation

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ASIC has made 47 regulatory interventions to address greenwashing misconduct during the 15-month period up to 30 June 2024, including the commencement of two Federal Court proceedings and over $123,000 in infringement notice payments. The range of interventions, outlined in Report 791 ASIC’s interventions on greenwashing misconduct: 2023–2024 (REP 791), are aimed at stamping out misleading and…

Read More ASIC Continues to Focus on Greenwashing

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The Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC) has just released a new research report Let me out – Subscription trap practices in Australia (published August 2024, written by Chandni Gupta, with thanks to CHOICE and Swetha Meenal Ananthapadmanaban) detailing harmful subscription trap practices in Australia and their affect on consumers. Additionally, the report explains best practices…

Read More New Report on Subscription Traps in Australia and Best Practices Going Forward

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/ 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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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 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

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A new report released today has found improvements are needed to the quality of advice and supports, and to the service provided by retailers and other energy service providers, or culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers risk being left behind in the energy transition. The joint Insights Report by Energy Consumers Australia (ECA) and Sydney Community Forum (SCF) is…

Read More CALD Communities in need of urgent supports for energy transition

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Below is the Centre for Media Transition’s website post on The Enforcement of Telecommunications Consumer Protections and the accompanying media release on the report by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). The website posts were released on 3/04/2024 and are available here (https://www.uts.edu.au/research/centre-media-transition/projects-and-research/enforcement-telecommunications-consumer-protections) and here (https://accan.org.au/media-centre/media-releases/2288-uts-enforcement-report). As noted by both the report and ACCAN,…

Read More 13 Years of ACMA Telecommunications Enforcement

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Enforcement Technology, also known as EnfTech, is technology used in any enforcement capacity for investigation, preventative measures, surveillance, remedies and/or sanctions and there could be a vital role for EnfTech to play in consumer protection. With the advent of the global digital market as the new norm for most consumers the need for consumer protection…

Read More Enforcement Technology and Consumer Protection