I have recently heard that CHOICE receives commissions and direct fees from various government and non-government bodies. ASIC is the main one mentioned. ‘thebigswitch’ and Partner ID with OFX also come up as being in a commission style arrangement with CHOICE.
I’ve looked on the CHOICE website but couldn’t find any statement and searches bought up commissions by everyone else in the reports by CHOICE.
Can anybody advise if CHOICE receives commissions and if so on what grounds are these commissions received?
Thanks for the question, we appreciate it when people come to us to talk about these issues as there’s often a bit of misinformation that gets passed around.
CHOICE is still a non-profit, ad free and the majority of our funds come from members who also get access to our product reviews. The majority of content on our website is still free to view as an aside.
We also receive funds from other ventures like licensing. All of this activity is listed on the link above. We don’t have any funding provided by ASIC or partner ID. CHOICE trialled an arrangement with One Big Switch in around 2008, but this did not involve commissions and certainly not trailing commissions or anything like that. At that time, the One Big Switch service was new and at the time we thought it would be a powerful tool for consumers and perhaps it was. However, CHOICE decided to focus on other things.
I’m sure CHOICE will probably seek other ventures in the future, but you can rest assured that we are consumer focused and committed to our achieving our nonprofit mission.
Unfortunately this misinformation has been doing the rounds for many years, I had someone try to convince me that Choice was paid for good reviews quite a few years ago. You have to wonder what their motive is.
