With sweeping Privacy Act changes to come into effect in less than a month, COSL has announced it has been appointed to handle privacy and credit reporting complaints.
Raj Venga, credit ombudsman, says The Privacy Act 1988, as amended, requires all credit providers to be members of a 'recognised' external dispute resolution (EDR) scheme, such as COSL, if they wish to disclose credit information to a credit reporting body or access such information.
“Credit providers who are already members of COSL will therefore not need to join another EDR scheme in order to meet the new legislative requirements," says Venga.
"If a person is dissatisfied with the decision of a credit reporting body or a credit provider about their complaint, or about the outcome of an access or correction request, they can complain to COSL about this as long as the credit reporting body or credit provider is a member of COSL.
"These complaints are often part of a broader complaint about financial services and so can be effectively dealt with by a scheme whose purpose is to resolve complaints between financial services providers and consumers.”
Amendments to the Privacy Act come into effect March 12, 2014.
