By Jeffrey Brown, a Principal of Matthews Folbigg, in our Insolvency, Restructuring and Debt Recovery Group
The latest statistics published by the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA) confirms what I am seeing in the business world – that registering on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) has become an accepted part of trading and credit in Australia.
In the March quarter of 2019 there were 462,578 new registrations created on the PPSR. That brought the total number of registrations on the PPSR to 10,004,438. Interestingly, there were over 2 million searches conducted on the PPSR during the March quarter, which represented a sharp increase in searches. Searches conducted by serial number were by far the most common type of search, accounting for over 1.2 million searches.
I predict that this number will only increase as businesses and consumers come to understand how to use the PPSR more effectively. Many of my clients have been unaware of the types of interests that they can register on the PPS. For example, landlords can register their interest in a security bond on the PPSR, and if they do so they can enforce that security to the extent that they are owed money at the conclusion of a commercial lease. This is despite the PPSR not being directly concerned with “real property” (in other words, land).
If you provide goods on credit, or issue invoices on any basis other than cash on delivery, the PPS may be the most effectively debt collection and debt recovery tool you can employ.
If you would like to discuss whether registration on the PPSR could be of benefit to credit collection in your business, please contact us.
