The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has put credit providers on notice that they need to start making the transition from the ASIC Register of Company Charges to the new Personal Property Securities Register.The Personal Property Securities Act, which comes into effect in October, is designed to rationalise the current federal, state and territory laws on securities in personal property. It creates a single set of rules and a single national register. A number of Commonwealth, state and territory personal property registers will close. Security interests that are listed on those registers will be transferred to the national PPS Register.In a notice issued yesterday, ASIC said that from October 2011 company charges will no longer be required to be lodged with ASIC. They will be registered on the PPS Register and managed by Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia.Property to be listed on the PPS Register will include assets that may be used to secure a loan, such cars, boats, crops and intellectual property. The PPS Register will not include real estate.As well as providing a single set of rules and a single securities register, the new law introduces some new concepts that credit providers will have to deal with.The new law does away with the concepts of fixed and floating charges, and bills of sale, replacing them with security interests.A personal property security arises when a secured party takes an interest in personal property as security for a loan or other obligation, or enters into a transaction that involves the supply of secured finance. The PPS Register will allow lenders and businesses to register their security interests. Secured parties and other interested parties can search the PPS Register to find out if a security interest is registered on personal property.The new law also introduces the concept of "perfection", which is a way of describing the priority status of a security interest.An item of personal property may be subject to more than one security interest, each with a different secured party. A security interest that is perfected has priority over an interest that is not perfected.