Payments and Embedded Finance
Payments licensing lawyer
Fixed fee counsel for BNPL providers, payment facilitators and fintechs whose product sits near the licensing perimeter. Credit licence, AFSL, structuring and regulator strategy. One team, one sequence.
Since June 2025 buy now pay later sits inside the national consumer credit regime, and a reform of payments system licensing is underway. The perimeter is moving, and the businesses built on the assumption that it would not are the ones with the most to lose.
Book a consultation or call (07) 3519 5616.
The problem we solve
A payments business fails at the perimeter. The product is designed, funded and launched on the position that it is not a financial product and not credit, and that position is tested for the first time when a regulator, a bank partner or an acquirer's due diligence team asks the question properly. Whether something is a financial product or a credit product turns on substance and rights, not labels, and the general licensing perimeter under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) is technology neutral. The label on your product does not decide the answer. The rights behind it do.
The direction of travel is one way. Buy now pay later was brought inside the credit regime from June 2025, with providers required to hold an Australian credit licence and apply a modified responsible lending framework. A licensing framework for payment service providers is in progress. And the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026 (Cth) commences on 9 April 2027, bringing digital asset platforms into the AFSL regime. Each is a different sector. It is the same story: the perimeter widens, and the operators who mapped their position early enter on their own terms.
Who we act for
BNPL and consumer credit products
Building or running instalment, deferred payment or credit adjacent products now that buy now pay later sits inside the national consumer credit regime. The licence, the modified responsible lending framework and the product design all have to agree with each other, and the order you resolve them in decides the cost.
Payment facilitators and platforms embedding payments
Software platforms adding payments to the product because the margin is there. The moment money moves through your stack the regulatory question changes, and a reform of payments licensing is underway that will redraw where the lines sit.
Fintechs testing the financial product boundary
Products designed to sit just outside the perimeter. That position is an argument, not a fact, and it turns on substance and rights rather than the language in your terms. Whether the argument holds is worth knowing before a regulator or an acquirer tests it for you.
Marketplaces holding or moving customer money
Platforms that collect, hold or pass on customer funds as part of the model. What looks like operational plumbing can be a regulated activity, and the exposure compounds quietly with every transaction processed on an unexamined assumption.
The Payments Entry Program
Three phases, each a fixed fee agreed before it starts. The sequence is the service.
Phase 1: Perimeter and pathway
Your product assessed against the actual perimeter before you are committed. You get the map: whether the product is a financial product or credit in substance, which licence or authorisation the model requires if any, the realistic pathway and timeline, and the failure modes specific to your structure. Fixed fee.
Phase 2: Licensing and structuring
We run the strategy and the applications. Licence applications, authorisation structures, product terms that match the regulatory position and the engagement with the regulator including requisition responses. Fixed fee, agreed after Phase 1.
Phase 3: Operational compliance
The obligations that switch on when you are live. Compliance frameworks, disclosure, partner and platform contracts, and the monitoring that keeps the position you built as the reform program lands. Fixed fee.
Why a law firm
Your perimeter analysis is the frankest conversation your business will have, because it is about what your product actually is rather than what the pitch deck says it is. That conversation is protected by legal professional privilege when you have it with us. Our advice carries the professional liability of a regulated profession. And your matter is run end to end by a senior lawyer.
Read the detail
BNPL Is Credit Now: What the Licence Means in Practice
Buy now pay later entered the national consumer credit regime in June 2025. What the credit licence and the modified responsible lending framework change for providers and for everyone building near them.
The We Are Not a Financial Product Era Is Ending
The perimeter turns on substance and rights, not labels, and it is widening. BNPL, payments licensing reform and the digital assets regime as three chapters of the same story.
Digital Assets Law in Australia: The Regulatory Map
The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026 (Cth) commences on 9 April 2027 and brings digital asset platforms into the AFSL regime. The adjacent example of the perimeter widening.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my BNPL product need an Australian credit licence?
Buy now pay later was brought inside the national consumer credit regime from June 2025, with providers required to hold an Australian credit licence and apply a modified responsible lending framework. Whether your specific product is caught, and what the licence means for its design, turns on the substance of the arrangement. That is what Phase 1 answers before you commit to a pathway.
My product is not labelled a financial product. Am I outside the perimeter?
Not necessarily. Whether something is a financial product or a credit product turns on substance and rights, not labels, and the licensing perimeter under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) is technology neutral. The position is an argument that has to hold under scrutiny, and testing it early is far cheaper than having a regulator test it for you.
What is the payments licensing reform and should I wait for it?
A licensing framework for payment service providers is in progress in Australia. Waiting is itself a strategy with costs and risks, because the perimeter that exists today still applies to you today. Whether to build for the current settings, the coming ones or both is a sequencing decision, and it is exactly the kind of decision Phase 1 exists to make deliberately.
We have been operating without a licence. What now?
The answer depends on what your product is in substance, how long the position has run and what the pathway to compliance looks like from where you stand. Some of the obvious looking moves make the exposure worse. This is a conversation to have under legal professional privilege, and sooner rather than later.
What does it cost?
Each phase is a fixed fee agreed before it starts, scaled to the product. No hourly rate ambush.
Discuss your product
The cheapest time to fix a perimeter position is before the product launches and before any regulator has formed a view of it. Call (07) 3519 5616 or book a consultation.
Book a ConsultationThis page is general information, not legal advice. The regimes it describes are moving, so some dates and rules will change. Obtain advice tailored to your circumstances before acting. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.