Australia’s financial regulator is backing a tightening of the voluntary code of practice regulating electronic payments that would limit its usefulness as a mechanism for consumers to recover losses from scams.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) on Monday reported [pdf] on a long-running review of the ePayments code, which “contains important consumer protections” for ATM, eftpos, card, internet and mobile banking transactions.
The code is eventually going to be made mandatory by the government – work on that will start this year.
ASIC is hoping that it can make “modest” updates to the voluntary code in the interim that may then flow into the government process.
However, some of the changes ASIC intends to push ahead were substantially criticised by consumer groups.
These include a plan to stop collecting yearly data on unauthorised transactions, and to focus instead on ad hoc or one-off reporting.
But a larger set of changes to the code would effectively remove ambiguity that ASIC admits has “in some instances had beneficial outcomes for individual consumers” that were fooled into paying scammers.
The changes, consumer groups argue, could also limit recourse for victims of financial abuse that are coerced to make certain transactions.
ASIC wants to clarify that a payment made as a result of a scam won’t be classified as a ‘mistaken internet payment’ under the code.
The regulator currently sets…
