Embattled buy now, pay later sector to be regulated under credit laws

New financial services minister Stephen Jones says buy now pay later products are a good innovation, but any argument about whether or not they are credit is ‘a dead-end street’. Photograph: Steven Saphore/AAP

The new financial services minister, Stephen Jones, says the Albanese government will push ahead with plans to bring buy now, pay later (BNPL) operators such as Zip and Afterpay under credit laws, in a further blow to the embattled sector.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, Jones also indicated the new government could demand the corporate watchdog restore the “why not litigate” approach it dumped last year, and said it would move to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges in the same way as other financial markets.