A new talking shop of industry and consumer interest groups formed last week, and adopted the label the "Predatory lending coalition".More than half a dozen consumer legal centres and related consumer entities are talking with the Australian Bankers Association, Abacus and Mortgage Finance Association of Australia in this coalition. The Legal Aid Commissions in New South Wales and Victoria and some law firms are also taking part.The Consumer Credit Legal Centre of NSW in a submission to the Productivity Commission earlier this year defined "predatory lending as a term we apply to expensive loans that are targeted at people with insufficient capacity to pay, with a view to almost inevitable enforcement. "Predatory lending is a subset of sub-prime lending, distinguished by very high fees and the extremely high likelihood of default. These loans are only offered to consumers who have a significant asset, usually their home, usually with a view to relieving the borrower of as much as their equity as possible."The underlying agendas of this collection of stakeholders in setting up this coalition is interesting.Regulation of consumer credit is rather disjointed in Australia, and mostly excluded, by design, from the reach of companies law and more recent laws that licence financial services providers. Rather, consumer credit law is left to state and territory agencies, with most (but not all) lending covered by the uniform consumer credit code.One emerging agenda might be to finally consolidate consumer credit law under federal jurisdiction.