This article discusses a trend towards increased empiricism in enforcement reporting by financial regulators that emphasises greater use of numerical indicators. The article examines how the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the...

Consumer leases are regulated in Australia separately from credit contracts. This has created opportunities for regulatory arbitrage and has resulted in significant harm to consumers. Recent reforms, which commenced on 1 March 2013, have addressed this problem by applying to consumer leases many...

The current debate in the United Kingdom about the appropriate regulatory response to payday lending involves the key issue of borrower vulnerability. There is compelling evidence in the UK that many payday lenders are deliberately making loans to financially vulnerable borrowers who cannot...

The regulation of payday lending in Australia has recently been reformed. The reforms followed a highly charged and polarised debate between the conflicting interests of consumer and welfare advocates — who argued for increased protection for payday loan borrowers — and the payday loan...

Australian credit card debt has grown rapidly over the last two decades and there were, as at September 2011, 14.9 million credit card accounts in Australia with outstanding balances of $49.2 billion, representing an ownership rate of 87% of the adult population. Credit cards are the second...

The authors examine the influence of behavioural research upon economic policy-making, as it relates to the regulation of consumer credit and consumer financial services. Using the examples of credit cards in the United States and Australia, and retirement savings' infrastructure in the United...

This paper is one of a series of working papers that explore various aspects of Australia's system of financial regulation and the relevance of its experience to reform in other countries. Adopting a broad perspective that outlines the context in which the system operates in Australia, it...

Various explanations have been advanced for why shareholder protection looks the way that it does. These explanations include varieties of capitalism, legal origins and various configurations of social interests. When compared with the United States and the United Kingdom, Australian corporate...

This paper explores important issues relating to regulatory coordination and integration in the international financial system. Coordination in a regulatory context refers to coordination between regulators in different jurisdictions to achieve desired regulatory outcomes, including effective...

In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, global and regional coordination has become increasingly important in cross-border financial regulation. In addition to dealing with the general aspects of regulatory supervision and enforcement, coordination now has to deal with the challenges...