Federated Farmers has welcomed the Commerce Commission's update on its investigation into the promotion and sale of interest rate swaps marketed by various banks, after writing to the commission last year.
"If farmers have concerns about the mis-selling of swaps, then now is the time to raise them with the
Commerce Commission," says Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills.
"Having broken the $50 billion barrier, the rural debt market is large and some of the debt instruments are complicated. There has also been a lot of discussion about swaps, so the Commerce Commission is best placed to properly investigate them.
"The commission is rightly looking at swaps from the perspective of the Fair Trading Act 1986. This includes misleading and deceptive conduct in trade, such as false and misleading representations.
"The Commerce Commission now wants to hear from those who have entered into interest rate swaps.
