A Senate committee has made ten recommendations, pushing for an "industry levy" to fund legal assistance and financial counselling for consumers and small businesses in disputes with their financial service providers.The report, released by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, was the culmination of a short inquiry from 14 February to late March. Crucially, the committee failed to nominate an appropriate levy, nor how large a financial services provider needed to be to qualify for the levy. This oversight aside, the over-riding theme of the report was the view that the current dispute resolution status quo - set up in some cases well before the Hayne royal commission was in need of a reset.There were several commendations aimed at redressing what the committee found was an uneven balance tilted in favour of financial players large and small that led to unfair outcomes in disputes.The committee - with three Labor and one Greens senator among its six members -considered that there were several measures that the current federal government could adopt immediately, and boost the effectiveness of the newly established Australian Financial Complaints Authority.This list included recommendations that the Australian Government:•    require Australian Credit Licence holders to comply with model litigant obligations throughout the internal and external dispute resolution processes - that is, it would no longer be possible to abuse court processes by withholding or denying the existence of documents to bodies such as the AFCA;•    improve home repossession processes by requiring that creditors engage with customers at an earlier stage, such as via a yet-to be established AFCA mediation section, which could also handle farm debt mediations; and•    require banks to give preference and due consideration to reasonable proposals put forward by customers to restructure debts, or pay down parts of debts when the family home is at risk.The committee also recommended that the Australian Government:•    increase the current compensation cap available to consumers through AFCA to $2 million, including for credit, insurance and financial advice disputes; and•    extend membership of AFCA to include the entire gamut of finial services players, such as debt management firms; debt agreement administrators; "'buy now pay later" providers; fintechs; and other emerging players.