The government will not proceed with phase two of the national consumer credit reforms. Late in February the assistant treasurer, Arthur Sinodinos, launched a review of the consumer leasing market, parts of which are unregulated. Indefinite and short-term (under four months) leases and not covered by responsible lending rules, licensing requirements and other provisions of the consumer credit law.Sinodinos said the government was concerned that consumers were being disadvantaged by the use of unregulated leases.A proposal for the regulation of indefinite and short-term leases was one of the issues included in consultation papers dealing with phase two reforms that the government circulated in December 2012.Other matters that were to be included in phase two were the regulation of small business lenders and brokers, the regulation of private finance arrangements and changes to investment lending rules.In an email to stakeholders at the end of February, an official in Treasury's retail investor division said that, apart from the review of the consumer leasing sector, the government "does not plan to progress any further portions of the phase two credit reforms."This will be welcome news to many in the industry. A number of submissions to the 2012 consultation paper on phase two called for a halt to further regulation of the finance industry until the impact of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act had been assessed.Others complained that the proposed regulation of investment lending had a very wide scope and could result in unintended consequences.A partner at Gadens Lawyers, Jon Denovan, said it was his understanding that the government would proceed with some fine tuning of the current regime that has been on the drawing board since last year.Among the changes are proposals to drop both the key facts sheets for home loans and the requirement to publish comparison rates. Lenders report that customer rarely request a key facts sheet.Another proposal is to allow brokers to access credit reports for the purpose of assisting clients applying for loans.