Actions against Kalkine Pty Limited for offering unlicensed advice – May 23, 2025
Kalkine Pty Limited has been ordered to appoint an independent compliance consultant to address concerns where the company’s customer service representatives were found to be giving unlicensed advice. Findings and recommendations by the consultant must be implemented to achieve compliance with the obligations of an Australian financial services (AFS) licence.
ASIC’s concerns over Kalkine included that the company failed to ensure its representatives, who are based in India, gave appropriate advice within the scope of the AFS license, as well as not properly complying with the law when interacting with consumers.
The representatives were also found of possibly having:
- provided personal advice when they were only authorized to provide general financial product advice; and
- misrepresented the type of advice that was given to customers, so customers could have believed that the advice was directed to them and not general advice.
“AFS licensees are responsible for the conduct of their representatives and must have adequate supervision arrangements in place to ensure their representatives comply with the law when engaging with customers.”
Sarah Court, Deputy Chair, ASIC
The company has agreed to the new imposed licence conditions.
Snaffle sued for alleging inflated prices – May 22, 2025
The online consumer goods supplier Snaffle has been sued for allegedly inflating prices on household goods and electronics, and applying unlawful interest charges under its credit contracts.
According to ASIC, Snaffle, operated by Walker Stores Pty Ltd, had a pricing structure that circumvented a cap on the costs – making customers pay hundreds of dollars more in interest then they should have.
The Annual Cost Rate is capped at 48%, yet three individual credit contracts showed that customers paid interest charges of between 60% and 103%. Snaffle also allegedly failed to disclose the cash price and true cost of the credit provided under each those contracts.
As many as 40,430 credit contracts are also believed to have breached the National Credit Code (NCC) by incorrectly having a flat interest rate applied to the full purchase cost for the whole term of the contract instead of the interest being calculated on the unpaid balance, which reduces over time.
Some of the cost examples included:
| Product | Cash price | Sold for* |
|---|---|---|
| 7.5kg Washer | A$477 ($307) | A$1,549 ($998) |
| A 315L Fridge | A$797 ($513) | A$2,340 ($1,507) |
| Mobile phone | A$1,487 ($958) | A$4,246 ($2,736) |
With the actions, ASIC seeks declarations against Walker Stores for breaching of various provisions of the NCC, pecuniary penalties, injunctions, and adverse publicity orders.
Resimac sued for alleging failures to customers facing financial hardship – May 21, 2025
The home loan manager Resimac has been sued for failing to provide appropriate care when responding to hardship applications as required by its credit licence.
Resimac manages non-bank loans provided by Perpetual Trustee Company Limited, and ASIC alleges that thousands of home loan customers suffered by its failures.
According to the Commission, the company had a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to applications, and often requested extensive information from vulnerable customers without considering whether it was relevant and necessary to the application.
The alleged violations of not acting efficiently, honestly and fairly under a credit license happened between January 1, 2022, and February 15, 2024.
“This approach was particularly unfair for customers experiencing vulnerability, for example, related to domestic and family violence, bereavement, separation or poor health.”
Sarah Court, Deputy Chair, ASIC
ASIC seeks declarations, penalties, adverse publicity orders, and costs.
Court updates
Mark McCabe sentenced for fraud offences – May 21, 2025
Mark Francis McCabe has been sentenced to four years and three months’ imprisonment (with a non-parole period of two years and six months) for three fraud offences.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud in September 2024, where he dishonestly obtained financial advantage by deception contrary to s192E(1)(b) of the Crimes Act 1900.
He obtained a total of A$940,350 ($636,102) from eight victims between October 2015 and April 2021, where investors thought they were gaining access to real foreign exchange trading accounts with access to capital funds to trade in a profit share arrangement.
However, McCabe only provided test accounts where trading was not possible, and instead misappropriated the funds to pay for his own business and personal expenses, including rental payments, private school fees and credit card purchases.
“The sentence imposed by the Court demonstrates the seriousness of Mr McCabe’s misconduct and sends a strong signal that will deter others from engaging in similar misconduct.”
Sarah Court, Deputy Chair, ASIC
Her Honour Judge David found the offending serious and characterized McCabe’s conduct as “highly deceptive” where the offending was “more than simply enticing people” and a “sophisticated scheme that created the illusion of genuine trading.”
Seeking appeal on Block Earner decision in High Court – May 21, 2025
ASIC has turned to the High Court seeking special leave to appeal the Full Federal Court decision which found that Block Earner (trading as Web3 Ventures Pty Ltd) was not engaging in unlicensed conduct earlier in April.
The Full Federal Court’s ruling also overturned the Federal Court’s original decision, which found the Earner product to be a financial product.
With the action, ASIC asks the High Court to rule what “falls within the definition of financial product and clarify when interest-earning products and products involving a conversion of assets from one form into another are regulated.”
Cancelled AFS license
Calaite Capital Partners Pty Ltd – May 20, 2025
The AFS of Calaite Capital Partners Pty Ltd has been cancelled following a payment of compensation by the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority made two determinations against the company in July and October 2024 of a total of A$267,235.57 (172,037) – which it failed to pay, and ASIC was notified.
ASIC news week 21
Notes from Superannuation CEO Roundtables to discussing FAR
Notes from ASIC’s and APRA’s two latest Superannuation CEO Roundtables can now be found on ASIC’s website.
The roundtables were held on April 1 and 10, and were attended by 15 superannuation CEOs who discussed key issues related to the Financial Accountability Regime (FAR).
Financial reporting and audit focus areas FY 2025-26
The Commission’s financial reporting focus areas for the 2025-26 financial year will continue to be:
- revenue recognition;
- asset valuation; and
- estimation of provisions.
For the audit focus areas, ASIC will review an increased number of audit files. In line with its integrated approach, the Commission says it will “continue to select audit files where a change has been made to financial information or the financial report, or where we have concerns that a financial report may have a risk of material misstatement.”
Some audit files will be selected based on other internal or externally available data. ASIC will also review a random selection of audit files from its regulated population.
Consumer lease industry on notice for potential compliance failures
A review by ASIC has found evidence of consumer harm related to consumer leases, where some providers risk breaching consumer protection laws.
A consumer lease is a contract where the provider owns the item at the end of the lease and not the consumer.
In December 2022, the Financial Sector Reform Act 2022 introduced reforms to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 in response to concerns about consumer harm following the practices of consumer lease providers.
Even though there has been a “significant decline” in leases and many providers have left the market since the reform, close to 25% of the leases are in arrears. ASIC says this indicates “the financial vulnerability of many Australians reliant on these arrangements.”
ASIC also found “room for significant improvement” in how consumer lease providers comply with the new obligations, especially around:
- the protected earnings amount;
- the cap on costs;
- suitability assessments;
- disclosure obligations;
- financial hardship requests; and
- the anti-avoidance provision.
