GE Money has been fined $1.5 million for deceiving its customers.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) took action against GE Capital Finance Australia, which trades as GE Money, for misleading its customers this week.

The financier told many of its customers that they had to consent to invitations to raise their limit if they wanted to activate their cards or apply for a credit limit increase.

The Federal Court has found GE Money made the claims to more around 700,000 of its credit card customers, but that they were misled because such consents were not needed.

The offending conduct happened in the months leading up to a Federal Government ban on unsolicited invitations to increase credit card limits, which came into effect in 2012.

The court found that GE Money was deliberately trying to circumvent the purpose of new laws through its conduct before they took place.

“The court concluded GE Money had deliberately tried to circumvent the intent of the laws through its conduct,” the ruling said.

“[It] was a systematic and deliberate attempt to mislead cardholders into giving their consent to receive invitations for future credit increases so as to avoid losses of up to $6 million which were projected to be suffered by GE Capital as a result of the tightening regulatory environment.”

On top of the fine, GE Money must now send notices to about 210,000 affected card holders, advising them of the decision, as well as pay $50,000 in legal costs to ASIC.

ASIC's deputy chairman Peter Kell has told the ABC that this highlights the purpose of the new restrictions.

“What ASIC had found ... is that these unsolicited credit card limit increase offers, they often hit consumers right at a time of financial vulnerability, really in some ways tempting them to take out further debt, to go further into debt,” he said.

“The amounts of money GE were making were in the millions of dollars.”

Some clemency was given due to the fact that GE Capital cooperated with ASIC in the investigation, and admitted its guilt.

GE Money customer have been urged to contact ASIC if they were approached with the credit limit increase offers.