ALP aims to rein in buy now pay later
A LABOR government would look to regulate the emerging buy now, pay later sector.
Speaking after a breakfast in Sydney on Tuesday hosted by the Financial Services Council, ALP spokesman on financial services and superannuation, Stephen Jones, said a Labor government would move to put some regulatory “teeth” in the sector’s code of conduct, which was unveiled by the Australian Finance Industry Association last year.
It would also look at areas where more action was needed to regulate the sector beyond what was contained in the code, and make sure there were “some basic consumer safeguards” put in place.
Mr Jones said the BNPL sector, which is dominated by players such as Afterpay and Zip, was selling products that competed with credit providers. “Buy now, pay later is operating in an ambiguous regulatory space,” he said.
“It is in the credit market, whether it thinks it is nor not, and therefore requires some level of regulation.”
Mr Jones said he welcomed the fact that the sector had adopted an industry code. He said that if Labor were elected, he would “let that run for a period of time” but would “probably end up codifying the code”, which could involve either an industry registration process or legislative action.
He said the government would then seek to “fill in the gaps” to introduce more regulation where needed.
The BNPL sector has argued that it does not provide credit, which is strictly regulated in Australia. Mr Jones said he was “not interested in arguing whether a particular product is credit or not”.