Credit Card Users Left In Dark Over Changes In Use
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday April 22, 2006
CONSUMER advocates have called for tougher disclosure requirements for credit card issuers when changes are made to the card's conditions of use.
This week, Commonwealth Bank cardholders received a notice of changes to conditions of use arising from the October collapse of the New Zealand operations of the Bankcard credit card brand. The notice included changes to five conditions but it did not provide copies of the original conditions. "In condition 9, 'Where can you use your card?'," the amendments begin, "delete the first dot point and replace with the following: 'Bankcard in Australia; and'." The notice did not explain that the changes had come about because of the collapse of Bankcard, nor did it explain the effect the changes might have on customers' use of the card. A spokesman for the Australian Consumers' Association, Nick Coates, said banks regularly notified consumers of changes to be made to conditions, or even fees, without informing the customer of the status quo. A spokesman for the Commonwealth Bank, Bryan Fitzgerald, said the changes flowing from Bankcard's collapse were minor and the notification met the bank's legal obligations. The bank understood consumers' concerns and would consider them in future notices, he said. Bankcard was launched by the former prime minister, Gough Whitlam, in 1974. A highly competitive financial services market forced it to withdraw from New Zealand in October 2005. In February, it announced its Australian operations would follow suit. The executive director of the Consumer Law Centre Victoria, Catherine Wolthuizen, said there was a culture of minimum disclosure that "just leads to a lot of confusion for many consumers. As a starting point, [they] need to be told the effect of the change and the purpose."
© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald
