Legal Directions: National consumer protection legislation

The Commonwealth Government has undertaken a significant reform agenda to be implemented by its regulatory agents being ASIC and APRA.

The Federal Government has introduced a new national consumer credit regime. The purpose of the regime is to transfer responsibility for regulation of consumer credit to the Commonwealth. The National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2010 achieves the following objectives:

• Converts the existing State legislation (the Uniform Consumer Credit Code) into Commonwealth legislation
• It establishes a national licensing regime and makes ASIC the sole regulator for the industry
• It requires licensees to observe a number of general conduct requirements