A Senate inquiry will scrutinise how Qantas and Virgin Australia were able to secure private "no-action" letters from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which allowed the airlines to send millions of unsolicited payment cards to their members.Senators from both sides of politics have asked the regulator to explain how the airlines could circumvent the laws on unsolicited debit cards. The senators have asked ASIC, Qantas and Virgin to make submissions to the Senate Economics Reference Committee detailing their reasons for the massive unsolicited Visa and MasterCard mail-outs. The committee is currently reviewing ASIC's performance.An investigation by Thomson Reuters' Compliance Complete found that the cards were being sent out — potentially illegally — to around one third of the Australian population. Consumer groups have questioned why ASIC would offer regulatory immunity to the issuers when the cards were already going out successfully on an opt-in basis. Labor senator Mark Bishop, who is chair of the Senate Economics Reference Committee, said major companies such as Qantas and Virgin could cause alarm in the community if they ignored the laws requiring cardholder consent.  "Those concerns go to the apparent issuing of unsolicited transaction cards to members, the levying of significant fees when loads on debit cards are exhausted and the apparent shortcoming in the [Australian Securities and Investments Commission] Act, whereby some forms of cards — hybrid cards and loyalty cards — are not covered in the relevant legislation," he said. Bishop said he was also concerned that the no-action letters granted by ASIC could create the impression that the regulator condones the unsolicited mail-out of these prepaid cards. "No-action letters are regarded by the industry as a green light to continue a course of action.  I am not sure that this is the intention behind the provision in the Act," he said. Liberal Senator Alan Eggleston, who is also a member of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, said ASIC's agreement with the airlines was extraordinary in view of the potential harm to consumers. "I think it was quite an irresponsible decision from ASIC and it puts a lot of innocent Australians at risk," Eggleston said.ASIC said in response to a report from Compliance Complete last week that section 12DL of the ASIC Act was created before the types of products being issued by Qantas and Virgin Velocity had come into existence."It is arguable that these kinds of cards technically come within the broad definition of 'debit card' used in section 12DL, however, that is not entirely clear," ASIC told Thomson Reuters.ASIC said in a recent report on its "decisions to cut red tape" that compliance with the opt-in laws would have been "disproportionately burdensome in the circumstances, including the uncertainty around the application of section 12DL." Eggleston said this was a poor justification for the no-action letters, given that both Qantas and Virgin were initially sending their cards to members who had opted in. The no-action letters simply allowed the airlines to send the cards to the 95 per cent of their members who had no chosen