Buy now pay later providers join businesses refusing firearms industry

The Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia has described the latest action as another attack on the industry and is urging the nation's one million licensed shooters to turn the tables and boycott the businesses involved.

"We're a population of 25 million people, and somewhere around one million of those are licensed firearms holders," SIFA executive officer James Walsh said.

"We need to start moving together to send a message to these businesses, such as AfterPay and Zip Pay, that we're not happy to be discriminated against.

"Many shooters have commented that they've cancelled their accounts but we need to build on this.

"Firearms are a legitimate product and the industry is legal and regulated."

According to the Buy Now Pay Later code of practice developed following a recommendation of a Senate committee in 2019 and released in March 2021, section 8.7 (f) states that signatories will "take reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure our Merchants or Retail Partners that we have a direct relationship with will not provide our BNPL Products or Services for online gambling, retail gambling, gambling at domestic or offshore casinos, and the purchase of firearms".

Although that doesn't state any reason for excluding firearms, Matthew Abbott, the director of corporate affairs for Zip Pay, said the company's decision not to offer its service to buy firearms or gamble had been decided a long while ago.

"This was a decision that reflected the values of Zip's founders," he said. "For people that want to purchase a firearm, there are plenty of other payment choices."

An AfterPay spokesman said the code had been finalised after extensive stakeholder consultation and feedback, and they were committed to complying with the code.

"Like all customer-centric organisations, we prioritise our focus on our customers' needs," he said. "Although Afterpay is becoming increasingly available in new categories of spend as people turn away from traditional forms of credit, we do not see Afterpay becoming available for firearms in the foreseeable future."

Mr Walsh said while claims of consultation were made, no-one had consulted specifically with the firearms industry that he was aware of.

"They can't tell us the why, they just don't understand the industry and think firearms are bad," he said.

While he felt the prohibition might hurt a strapped for cash farmer needing to buy a new firearm for their business, he was most concerned with the symbolism of it, calling it another example of 'woke' businesses forcing their unjustified moral and social judgements on legitimate firearm owners.

According to Diane Tate, CEO of the Australian Finance Industry Association, feedback received during the consultation process was that the use of BNPL for certain purchases could cause consumer harm, with gambling and weapons specifically identified.

"Each BNPL provider must implement their own credit policies and merchant and retailer strategies and each of the BNPL providers that are signatories to the BNPL Code of Practice came with their own list of excluded industries," she said.

"Prior to the BNPL Code of Practice being implemented, BNPL wasn't used for these products or services, and so has not been withdrawn.

"Consumers wanting to purchase these products or services can use alternative forms of finance."

Ms Tate said the credit policy reflected individual business decisions and community expectations.

She added that the BNPL code of practice was reviewed every two years.

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It was introduced on March 1, 2021, and so the next review will start in less than 12 months.

"The consultation process has not been decided, but we would anticipate that like the initial development of the code, AFIA will be conducting a public consultation process to get stakeholder and industry input and we will seek the views of all interested stakeholders," she said.

In 2019, the Australian shooting industry was estimated to contribute $2.4 billion to Australia's GDP and support 19,500 full-time jobs.

The Australian shooting industry is still trying to recover from the last attack against it, where long-term industry freight provider Fedex/TNT cancelled all services to the industry, virtually bringing it to a standstill until a solution was brought about by Australia Post and Startrack.

Mr Walsh said insurance companies were now systematically refusing to insure firearms businesses, whether it was for public liability insurance or building and contents policies.

"This has been ongoing but it's getting worse," he said.

"They don't give any specific reason, but one business was quoted a premium somewhere between $50,000 and $60,000 to insure their business.

"What these businesses fail to understand or care about, is that every time they decide to apply their social engineering to our industry, the Australian economy takes a hit and it costs Australians their jobs.

"It's time they end their discrimination of our industry."