Latest / Best of Business / Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on David Seymour removing regulations for buy now, pay later sector

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Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on David Seymour removing regulations for buy now, pay later sector · Best of Business

• 0:09
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  Speaker 2: Now we've got the first example of David Seymour's Ministry
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: of Regulation pulling another minister into line. By now Pay Later,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: providers will be allowed to charge whatever fees they want
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  Speaker 2: after Cabinet decided to exempt them from the credit contract
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  Speaker 2: and consumer finance. Basically, Cabinet decided to side with David
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  Speaker 2: Seymour and not Andrew Bailey. Janatib Trainey is The Herald's
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Wellington Business editor. Hey you name hey Heather?
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: How did how did.
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  Speaker 2: David Seymour get them to side with him?
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's a good question and I think it is
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  Speaker 3: pretty significant because you know, David Seymour, Minister for Regulation,
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  Speaker 3: his advice that he gets from the new Ministry for
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  Speaker 3: Regulation gazumps the advice of MB and the Commerson Consumer
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  Speaker 3: Affairs Minister Andrew Bailey, the experts in consumer affairs issues
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  Speaker 3: like around buy now, pay later, So you know the
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  Speaker 3: effects of this could be quite big. By now pay later.
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  Speaker 3: The way it works is you go and shop, you
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  Speaker 3: buy something and then you repay the money in installments,
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  Speaker 3: so you don't pay any interests, but if you miss
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  Speaker 3: a payment, you pay a big fee. So what I
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  Speaker 3: think the government recognizes is that that model is quite
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  Speaker 3: different to traditional debt, so like quite different to a
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  Speaker 3: credit card or something like that where you're paying interest.
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  Speaker 3: So the argument is we'll buy now, pay later shouldn't
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  Speaker 3: be put under the exact same rules as the banks
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  Speaker 3: and the credit cards they issue, for example. Everyone agrees
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  Speaker 3: on that, but Andrew Bailey thought, hey, we still need
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  Speaker 3: to put some rules around the fees that these buy now,
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  Speaker 3: pay later providers charged, because you know, we don't want
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  Speaker 3: to sort of just just let them, let them have
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  Speaker 3: complete free reign. And David Seymour, you know, i'd act
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  Speaker 3: leader ideologically doesn't love a lot of regulation. He said, no,
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  Speaker 3: let's just let the market sort it out. You know,
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  Speaker 3: these providers can't hike fees too much because if they do,
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  Speaker 3: they'll lose their customers. So let's just leave them to it.
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  Speaker 3: And David Seamore one.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Janey, it's the second time in a matter of
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  Speaker 2: literally days that David Seymour has overridden Andrew Bailey on something,
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  Speaker 2: because the other one was also the supermarket regulation. Do
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  Speaker 2: we know whether David is doing this out of actual
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  Speaker 2: ideological purity or is he using Is this some sort
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  Speaker 2: of political horse trading going on here.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's a good question, and it might be a
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  Speaker 3: bit of both. Really, you know, I think this is
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  Speaker 3: always the challenge with political parties in a coalition. They
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  Speaker 3: need to keep their voters happy and differentiate themselves from
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  Speaker 3: the major party, in this case, National that they're in
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  Speaker 3: a coalition with. So I think it may well be both.
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  Speaker 3: I have no doubt that ideologically David Seymour prefers to
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  Speaker 3: take a hands off approach. You know, he believes that
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  Speaker 3: you intervene too much and you distaught the market and actually,
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  Speaker 3: you know, yeah, just just let let competition do its thing.
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  Speaker 3: But at the same time, you know, he's a good
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  Speaker 3: politician and it really almost seems like he enjoys, you know,
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  Speaker 3: ribbing his coalition partners a little bit. It was interesting
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  Speaker 3: because Christopher Luxen was asked about this and post cabinet
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  Speaker 3: press conference earlier this week, because David Seymour came out
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  Speaker 3: and said, you know, leave leave the supermarkets alone. They
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  Speaker 3: don't need to be regulated more. Even though Andrew Bailey said, look,
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  Speaker 3: what we're open to regulating the supermarkets more heavily. And
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  Speaker 3: Christopher Luxon just shot down a question. He was pretty
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: snappy when asked about it, and he said, what did
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  Speaker 3: he say? Said something to the effect of right, Andrew
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  Speaker 3: Bailey is the Commison Consumer Affairs Minister, full stop. Let
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  Speaker 3: me be really clear. So yeah, I think it's you know,
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  Speaker 3: I think this is kind of an amusing situation, but
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  Speaker 3: it's the way the systems set up, how EMP works.
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  Speaker 3: It makes for a bit of entertainment for us at Yes.
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  Speaker 2: I don't mind a bit of friction in there because
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  Speaker 2: usually grind out the stupid ideas like that. Hey, thank
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  Speaker 2: you very much much, really appreciated that. Chenetive trainee who's
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  Speaker 2: the Wellington Business Editor.
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