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29th Aug, 2025
Each new financial year, many of us take a closer look at our super funds’ performance, and you’re more likely to be targeted by salespeople, cold callers or social media ads offering “free super health checks” or to “find your lost super”. These offers can be the start of a high-pressure campaign to get you to switch super funds or make investments that may be unsuitable for you.
These calls and ads don’t always look like typical scams. Callers may sound genuine, claiming they want to help you find a better deal or locate lost super for free. Sometimes they’ll even refer you to a financial adviser to make the pitch sound more legitimate. But behind the scenes, there may be commission arrangements or other incentives that put their interests ahead of yours.
Here are some warning signs that a caller or an advertiser might not have your best interests at heart:
Remember, if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Promoters often play on your fears, hopes and your politeness to rush you into a decision.
Your super is too important to risk. Take your time, ask questions and don’t rush into any decisions.
13th Aug, 2024
In recent years, the financial landscape in Australia has been significantly transformed by the advent of buy now, pay later (BNPL) services. These innovative credit products have provided consumers with a convenient and often cheaper alternative to traditional credit forms such as credit cards, small amount credit contracts and consumer leases.
BNPL arrangements typically involve a third-party provider financing consumer purchases of goods and services, with repayments collected in instalments. Unlike traditional credit products, BNPL services generally don’t charge interest but may impose small fees on consumers and service fees on merchants. Australian BNPL transactions were worth around $19 billion in 2022–2023, accounting for approximately 2% of all Australian card purchases.
Currently, BNPL products aren’t regulated under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Credit Act). As a result, providers aren’t subject to responsible lending obligations (RLOs) or other Credit Act requirements, and they don’t need to hold an Australian credit licence. Some of the most common concerns about the BNPL sector include unaffordable lending practices, inadequate complaint resolution and hardship assistance, excessive late payment fees, and a lack of transparency in product disclosures and warnings.
Although BNPL providers adhere to the Australian Finance Industry Association’s voluntary Buy Now, Pay Later Industry Code, which covers approximately 90% of the market, this self-regulation isn’t enforceable by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Consequently, breaches of the Code don’t attract criminal or civil penalties, highlighting the need for more robust regulatory oversight. A Bill currently before Parliament aims to extend application of the Credit Code to BNPL contracts and regulate most BNPL contracts as low cost credit contracts (LCCCs). Once the Bill passes, providers of LCCCs will be required to hold and maintain an Australian credit licence and comply with the relevant licensing requirements and licensee obligations, with some modifications to ensure regulation is proportionate to the relatively low risk posed by LCCCs. The existing RLO framework will also be modified to create an alternative, opt-in framework that scales better with the risks posed to consumers and requires each LCCC provider to develop and review a written policy on assessing whether an LCCC would be unsuitable for the consumer.
13th Jul, 2024
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued a scam alert warning consumers that there has been an increase in the use of ASIC’s logo in social media scams promoting fake investments and stock market trading courses; cold calling scams; and impersonation accounts on Telegram. ASIC is working with the National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) and social media platforms to remove such content and reminds consumers that it does not endorse or promote investment training or platforms, doesn’t cold call consumers, and is not associated with any investment offerings.
ASIC’s warning to consumers covers three main areas of concern.
19th Dec, 2023
As a part of the government strategy to target investment scams, ASIC and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) – through the newly formed National Anti-Scam Centre – have published an investor alert list which may help consumers to identify whether entities they are considering investing with could be fraudulent, running a scam or unlicensed. While the list is not exhaustive, as new scams are appearing every day, any reduction of consumer harm, financially and non-financially, is surely a positive step.
According to the National Anti-Scam Centre, which commenced operation on 1 July 2023, Australians reported a record $3.1 billion of losses to scams the previous year. The Centre is already making inroads by highlighting the most harmful scams and making it easier for Australians to report scammers, and it will build its capabilities over the next three years, working on a new system to improve scam data-sharing across government and the private sector.
The new investor alert list replaces the previous list of “companies you should not deal with” issued by ASIC, and has the advantage of including both domestic and international entities that regulators are concerned about. These concerns largely relate to entities operating and offering services to Australians without appropriate licenses, exemptions, authorisation or permission. The alert list also includes entities that run impersonation scams, falsely claiming to be associated with legitimate and often well-known businesses.
ASIC recommends conducting the following checks before handing over any investment money:
23rd Oct, 2023
With the cost of living crisis and increase in interest rates hitting Australian households, there is growing evidence that many are falling into financial stress. It is with this background that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued an open letter to various banks, credit institutions, and lenders, calling on them to ensure that their customers have the appropriate level of support.
ASIC has reminded lenders that under s 72 of the National Credit Code, providers must consider varying a customer’s credit contract if they are notified that these credit obligations are unable to be met. Credit providers must also ensure that credit activities authorised by their licence are engaged in efficiently, honestly and fairly. First and foremost, to meet their obligations, lenders must proactively communicate to customers about the circumstances in which they can seek hardship assistance and the options that are available.
Hardship options may be temporary (eg deferring a payment) or permanent (eg setting up a payment plan or altering/varying loan repayments). Applications for financial hardship will usually be required to provide proof of hardship including reasons for the hardship, current income and other major financial expenses, as well as the level of repayments that can be afforded at the current time.
Customers worried that seeking hardship arrangements will permanently affect their future credit scores can rest easy knowing the effects are only temporary. While hardship arrangements for certain credit products such as loans or credit cards can appear in credit reports, the report will only show the months the arrangement is in place, or if the arrangement is permanent, the month the loan is varied, no other details are included and the listing will be deleted after 12 months.
Where a hardship application is granted, lenders should contact customers as the period of assistance comes to an end, to understand their most up-to-date financial circumstance and consider whether further assistance is required. This includes ensuring that customers understand what happens to any arrears that may exist at the end of the hardship assistance period.
Where a customer’s hardship assistance is denied, written reasons must be provided along with other options including making a complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) about the decision.
11th Apr, 2023
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released results of its recent review on improving arrangements for life insurance in super funds. The review was conducted as a follow-up to issues first identified in 2019, when ASIC found that some super trustees offered insurance that unnecessarily erodes a member’s retirement balance, inappropriate coverage of insurance due to restrictive definitions and exclusions, and unreasonably onerous or lengthy claims handling processes.
To find out whether improvements had been made in the industry, ASIC used its compulsory information-gathering powers to examine the actions of 15 selected trustees. In total, approximately three million super accounts in these trustees’ funds had death and/or total and permanent disability (TPD) cover, and approximately 800,000 accounts had income protection (IP) cover at 30 June 2022. This information was further supplemented with industry-level data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) to gauge the overall level of improvement.
Overall, the report concluded that while the changes observed are a positive step towards reducing risks of members receiving insurance that does not meet their needs or paying for cover they cannot claim on, trustees need to continue improving how they monitor and respond to those risks. ASIC says it will continue to work closely with APRA to drive better practices in the super industry, and will use its regulatory powers where trustees and insurers are not complying with their obligations.