The Human Rights Commission administers Commonwealth laws relating to age, sex (including same-sex), race and disability discrimination.

To the extent that those laws apply to financial services and credit, non-compliance could be a breach of a licensee’s obligations under an Australian Financial Services Licence and an Australian Credit Licence.

Compliance with the financial services laws is a core licence obligation for financial services licensees under section 912A(1)(c) of the Corporations Act.

“Financial services law” is defined in section 761A of the Corporations Act to include “any other Commonwealth, State or Territory legislation that covers conduct relating to the provision of financial services (whether or not it also covers other conduct), but only in so far as it covers conduct relating to the provision of financial services.”

For credit licensees the general conduct obligations in section 47 of the National Credit Act include compliance with “credit legislation” in section 47(1)(d).

“Credit legislation” is defined in section 5 to include “any other Commonwealth, State or Territory legislation that covers conduct relating to credit activities (whether or not it also covers other conduct), but only in so far as it covers conduct relating to credit activities.”

Licensees should review their procedures to address discrimination issues.

Is responsible lending discriminatory?