Lender Webinar – Advertising Guidelines and Annual return portal

We discussed lenders’ obligations and what the Commission expects to see with regard to advertising and an update on the annual return process for 2025. There are also presentations on our complaints/investigations data as well as from a presentation from the Banking Ombudsman Scheme on consumer credit fees - one of the Dispute Resolution Scheme Providers.

You can read all the presentations and speeches from our webinar as well as answers to some of the questions asked below.

Questions and Answers

The Commission is unable to provide legal advice. Some of the questions we received are also specific to individual business practices.  The shift away from prescriptive based regulation around affordability provides greater flexibility for lenders and we are not able to respond to specific questions around individual operational practices. Lenders should tailor their own approach to compliance, aligned with the principles and expectations outlined in the CCCFA, Responsible Lending Code and from our guidance. Lenders should seek legal advice if they remain unsure about how to comply with the law.

Advertising

What does “prominent manner” mean?

The Code guides that prominence is context-specific and will depend on the advertising medium used. A lender should ensure that the required information is likely to come to the attention of, and be understood by, the average audience that the communication is directed too.

Factors that may affect prominence include whether the information is:

• legible or audible or both;
• brought to the attention of a reasonable person in a clear manner that is unlikely to be overlooked, reflecting its importance;
• of a size, colour and position that is appropriate for that advertisement or medium; and not hidden or obscured.

What is considered Misleading, Deceptive or confusing advertising?

The Code guides that a lender should comply with the following practices to ensure that advertising is not “confusing”:

• set out advertisements in a way that allows them to be readily understood by the intended audience;
• make sure key information is legible or audible, or both, and take care to disclose information in a level of detail that is commensurate with its importance; and
• use technical language and statistics only where they are relevant and in a way that can be readily understood by consumers without specialist knowledge.
• The Code commentary on “misleading” and “deceptive’ includes that lenders should, in relation to advertising:
• have reasonable grounds for making any claim (other than puffery – i.e. obvious exaggeration)
• only use fine print to elaborate on the main selling message, not to contradict it
• disclose any conditions that are unusual, inconsistent with, or modify, in an unexpected manner, the main message of the advertisement; and
• only make comparisons between sufficiently like products.

Annual return portal

Who can submit an annual return on behalf of the lender?

As part of the online submission process the person submitting the return will be asked to provide their name and contact email address and confirm that the information to be submitted is true and correct and that they “have the authority to provide this return on behalf of the lender.

What if I am a non-financial business providing credit on an interim basis?

Non-financial businesses (eg, car dealers) that provide credit on an interim basis (ie, where the loan is assigned to another creditor within one working day) are exempt from the obligation to submit an annual return provided certain conditions met (regulation 28 of the CCCF Regulations). A key condition of the exemption is that the assignee creditor provides the information in its annual return that the non-financial business would otherwise have to provide.

If you are a non-financial business providing interim credit in the first instance you should contact your assignee creditor with any questions about meeting the terms of the annual return exemption.

Once I have started completing the return online can I save my return prior to submission and return to it later?

While there is no “save” button, information inputted into the online return is stored in the system once you have progressed through a page (until it is submitted), meaning lenders can exit the portal and return to it later.

How long do I have to complete my annual return before the online portal times out?

The security settings in the online portal will log you out if you remain on a single page for more than 20 minutes, and progress on that page will be lost. We suggest that you prepare your annual return answers for the mandatory required information in advance of logging into the online portal.

If you do get logged out, your account reference and access code will remain active and you will be able to log back in and start your return again.