Thank you for the opportunity to appear today on behalf of ASIC.
ASIC administers and enforces a broad range of legislation relating to the provision of financial products and services including credit. Our regulatory activities include law enforcement and other regulatory activities such as undertaking targeted reviews on financial products and services.
The laws that ASIC administers include broad conduct obligations that may be relevant to a situation where a financial firm responds poorly to a consumer experiencing financial abuse.
It is however important to note that there are no financial services laws explicitly directed towards how financial firms should treat consumers experiencing financial abuse.
Noting that context, we have made an effort in our submission to provide examples where issues relating to financial abuse have come up in our work on a range of issues. I will briefly touch on two areas of our work covered in our submission.
ASIC’s recent financial hardship report
The first is our recent end-to-end review of the policies, processes and practices of 10 large home lenders in responding to consumers experiencing financial hardship. Our review culminated in Report 782 Hardship, hard to get help: Findings and actions to support customers in financial hardship. As part of this review, ASIC found that lenders were not doing enough to support vulnerable consumers including those experiencing family violence and financial abuse.
In ASIC’s submission we have included a number of case studies from our report that relate to consumers experiencing family violence and seeking assistance from their home lender. These case studies highlight that home lenders are not always providing consumers in deeply stressful situations with sufficient levels of care and support.
Mr Dorman, who is appearing with me today, led that piece of work and can speak to the case studies and our broader observations in more detail.
ASIC’s Indigenous Outreach Program
The second area of our work that I would like to mention is that of our Indigenous Outreach Program (IOP) – a dedicated team that has been part of ASIC since 2009. The IOP is a specialist team working across ASIC to provide advice, insights and support, to ensure the needs and requirements of First Nations investors and consumers are understood and addressed appropriately, effectively, and in a way that is culturally sensitive and responsive.
ASIC published its Indigenous Financial Services Framework in February 2023. The Framework outlines Key Learnings relating to First Nations peoples’ access to and engagement with the Australian financial system that inform our work.
ASIC has also hosted a series of workshops for industry on barriers to access and issues of importance to First Nations people in the financial system. Relevantly, a workshop in March focused on identifying and supporting First Nations consumers who may be experiencing or at risk of financial abuse. This workshop showcased real life consumer experiences and highlighted best practices that could be broadly adopted across the financial services industry. Ms Abbott leads the IOP team and will be happy to speak in more detail about its work.
We recognise that there is growing community interest in the way in which financial firms are responding to the needs of people experiencing financial abuse, so will be closely following the progress of this inquiry. We look forward to answering the Committee’s questions.
