New Commercial Agent Licensing Regime - NSW

The New South Wales Police Security Licensing Enforcement Directorate (SLED), was responsible for the licensing of individuals and corporations however, on the 1 July 2022, the Commercial Agents and Private Inquiry Agents Act 2004 has been repealed and persons or corporations carrying out surveillance of persons and investigation of persons will be regulated by SLED under the Security Industry Act 1997.?Individuals or corporations carrying out process serving, debt collection and repossession of goods activities will be regulated by NSW Fair Trading under the Fair Trading Amendment (Commercial Agents) Act 2016 (CAPI Act).?The Fair Trading Amendment (Commercial Agents) Regulation 2022 amends the Fair Trading Regulation 2019 and sets out the Commercial Agent Rules and other regulations applicable to the regulation of commercial agents.?

?A significant change is the definition of commercial agents who have in-person contact with customers. These are known as field agents.?Essentially field agents approach a person and/or visit the place they live, work, own or attend, in order to collect debts, repossess goods or serve legal documents. From a practical perspective this includes carrying out a field call to interview a person about an insurance claim, outstanding debt or any form of debt related matter.

An Important Note:?Phone or video communication is not considered ‘in-person contact’.

Only field agents and their employers must be licensed under the new requirements meaning debt collectors who perform collection activity via phone or video communication, where no face to face contact with customers is made, are no longer required to hold a licence under any Act however, they must adhere to the commercial agent rules that establish standard of conduct for the industry.

The change in enforcement will impact the industry significantly in terms of licence costs.?New fees have been introduced representing an increase of fees of more than 100% with an individual new licence for 12 months costing $389.00 from $130.00 and a corporation licence costing $1200.00 from $480.00. These costs together with the increasing costs associated with performing field agent activities including fuel, car maintenance, insurance and other general business and living costs means that fees charged for the performance of commercial agent services will also rise, particularly considering the predicted inflationary rises.

At Risk & Security Management, as part of our robust compliance processes, we will ensure that the company and all field agents carrying out field agent activities are licensed in accordance with the new regulations for all activities carried out on behalf of our valued clients.?RS will continue to work closely with all stakeholders to deliver the very best service that we can at the most competitive price without compromising the integrity of our services.

For more information contact our Legal & Compliance Manager, Rachael Gabrael [email protected] .?