Registry rules 'invite fraud'

Car-finance industry says new rules restricting access to vehicle-registration information are pushing up costs and opening the way for fraudsters. Photo / Thinkstock

The car-finance industry says new rules restricting access to vehicle-registration information are pushing up costs and opening the way for fraudsters.

As of May 1, the Government has blocked automatic access to the motor-vehicle register, with the aim of protecting privacy.

But car dealers and financiers say it has had the unintended consequence of making their jobs harder by increasing the cost of doing checks and creating loopholes for those trying to put one over.

The changes causing problems are:

A ban on access to historic registrations of a vehicle.

The ability for owners to "opt out" of having their details on the register.

Joint owners of a vehicle are no longer registered.

Richard de Lautour, chief executive of Instant Finance, said that when securing a loan on a vehicle the financier would get a letter from the previous owner to confirm they had sold it. The new regulations made that more difficult.

"We can't get any feel for what's happened to that car."

Industry body the Financial Services Federation has been lobbying the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) over the issue.

Executive director Kirk Hope said financiers now had to go through a separate process to seek ownership history.

"You have to make what is effectively an Official Information Act request.

"If [the process] is too long and painful, firms just won't do it and what that does is increase the risk of fraud."

Stephen Massey, lending manager at Avanti Finance, said the changes had meant delays of up to two days in processing applications. "Before we were able to access [the information] instantly." It was also far more expensive - checks that used to cost 30c now cost $15.

Greg McQuaid, business development manager for vehicle information-reporting company MotorWeb, said the opt-out provision wasn't needed because only legitimate parties could access the register now anyway.

The combined changes would make it harder for financiers to police their loans.

A person could take out a loan secured on their car, opt out of the register and then sell the car. The new owner could then also opt out, and the old owner's details would not be available.

"So basically you can hide your car from your finance company," McQuaid said.

The industry used the historic register in other ways.

"Car dealers say, 'We know the ratbags in town that buy the damaged cars and do them up and flick them off, and if we see Bob Smith's owned this car we won't touch it with a barge pole'."

NZTA spokesman Andy Knackstedt said he was aware the finance industry felt the application process for requesting historic information was time consuming.

"We are looking at whether it is possible to streamline the process without increasing administration costs," he said.