Our submission to New Zealand Government inquiry into buy-now pay-later
Our submission is supported by Financial Counselling Australia, the peak body for financial counsellors (commonly known as financial mentors in New Zealand), who work with not-for-profit community organisations like Consumer Action to provide free and confidential advice and support to people experiencing financial stress.
This review in New Zealand comes at a critical time, as the use of buy-now pay-later (BNPL) has continued to grow significantly in Australia and New Zealand over the last few years.
This growth has flowed through to the case work of financial counsellors in Australia.The legal status of BNPL products in New Zealand, as described in the Discussion Document, is extremely similar to its current status in Australia–that is, it is essentially unregulated credit.
We are responding to the Discussion Document because debts accrued from BNPL products are becoming an increasingly common form of debt that contributes to the hardship experienced by our clients in Australia.
Further, our casework indicates that those debts are causing or exacerbating financial hardship.
Read the full submission (PDF).
211216_CALC BNPL NZ sub