Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort) 2023

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort) 2023

## What it does
This law creates a new safety net called the Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) to protect people's money if their financial adviser or services provider goes broke. It sets up the legal framework and rules for how this scheme will operate, including who runs it and how it gets funded.

## Why it matters
If your financial adviser collapses and you've lost savings, this scheme gives you a way to claim compensation as a last resort—after other protections have been exhausted. Without it, everyday Australians could lose their life savings with no recourse if a financial services company fails catastrophically.

## Key details
- **The scheme is funded through a levy** on financial services providers, with a one-off "capital reserve" contribution to get it started (details in a separate levy act)
- **It only kicks in** once the companion Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort Levy Act 2023 commences—so the actual start date depends on another bill passing
- **A dedicated operator** will run the scheme and handle compensation claims, with staff and consultants employed specifically for this purpose

Official Description

Introduced with the Financial Accountability Regime Bill 2023, Financial Accountability Regime (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023, Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort Levy Bill 2023 and Financial Services Compensation Scheme of Last Resort Levy (Collection) Bill 2023, the bill amends the Corporations Act 2001 , Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 and National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 to establish the financial services compensation scheme of last resort to provide compensation to eligible consumers in circumstances where an Australian Financial Complaints Authority determination awarding monetary compensation has been made in their favour, but which the relevant entity has not paid.

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

8 Mar 2023

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

3 July 2023

Last checked by Crossbench

yesterday

Full text indexed

yesterday

🗳️

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

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