Holman Web Lawyers | Oct 13, 2022

Since 2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has introduced amendments to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 which enable consumer data information to be shared, in order to facilitate the process known as open banking.

At present, Consumer Data Right legislation solely relates to information held by banks and energy companies.  It is anticipated that there will be a further and more significant roll out of legislation impacting the wider financial sector, as well as other sectors within the economy, in the next several years.

What is Consumer Data?

Consumer Data is information designated by the relevant minister, which might be held by a bank or energy company (or organisations within other industries) and which is deemed to be information which should be available to be provided on the request of a consumer.

See:  Australia: An Update On The Consumer Data Right

A Consumer Data Right (CDR) consumer is a person to whom the data relates, because they have in the past been supplied with a good or a service.

A CDR Data Holder is someone who holds that data.

Requests relevant to the financial services industry

The type of requests for CDR data in financial services relate to:

1. Information held by data holders (such as banks) concerning financial history of consumers; and
2. Information which would be relevant to either a credit provider or broker, or some other person responsible for deciding whether further or additional credit should be provided for that consumer.

See:  CMA: Publishes Open Banking ‘Lessons Learned’ in Successfully Implementing Remedies

The CDR data request process will enable a CDR consumer to authorise a person seeking information on their behalf to obtain it, without the CDR consumer having to apply for the information. That is, it is an authority by the consumer to a ‘Trusted Advisor’, to allow the Trusted Advisor to request that their data be provided directly to the Trusted Advisor, by the data holder.

It avoids the necessity for the CDR consumer to obtain the credit information and then provide it to the broker or credit provider.  This is intended to shortcut the process of applications and remove task duplication.