The Australian Securities and Investments Commission will audit between five and 10 per cent of credit licence holders, a senior executive told a Financial Services Institute of Australia briefing.Greg Kirk, senior executive leader for deposit-takers, credit and insurance providers at ASIC, said that the regulator would be conducting the random audits to verify the accuracy of information provided in annual compliance certificates.Compliance certificates are a new requirement on the supply credit. They effectively require Australian credit licence holders to certify a number of matters on an annual basis, including that they are acting in accordance with their obligations, as well as to provide data about their business activities and their senior staff. Kirk said that, on balance, the process was working well, and the regulator had received 4720 compliance certificates as at April 16. "Where people are… identifying shortfalls in the compliance certificates they lodge, our response is to assist them to get these things in place. It is not a punitive approach. "But we also acknowledge we need to make sure there is some rigour around people noting these things and what they are saying. "So, our compliance and deterrence team is just commencing a series of site visits, on a random basis, with people who have lodged compliance certificates to check and verify the accuracy of the information provided," Kirk told the Finsia briefing. He expects these audits to be conducted at between five and 10 percent of licensees, a figure that was "enough to make people feel they will be [audited]". ASIC will also pay particular attention to more disputed entities, and will derive intelligence from a number of complaints databases. Kirk said that responsible lending was a strong area of focus for the regulator, with low-documentation lending and the micro, or payday, lending sectors being particular areas of concern. "In terms of responsible lending, we have done thematic reviews in a number of sectors which we have identified as those most at risk of potential non-compliance and consumer deception. So, we have done public reports examining practices around low-documentation lending, really with a focus on the activity of brokers, and in the micro or pay day lending space. "Those reports were designed to point out those sorts of problems, show them to industry and look for corrective action. I think we are moving more to a tougher stance now on some of those things," he said.ASIC is also undertaking similar work regarding debt consolidation. "Again, that is an area of risk, services that actively market themselves as offering debt consolidation, so they are targeting people who are likely to be on the fringe of affordability," Kirk said. Credit cards were another area where regulatory reform was imminent, with a set of measures due to come into force in July 2012, he said. Kirk said ASIC was concerned that some credit card issuers had fallen short of their responsible lending obligations, particularly when inviting customers to increase their limits and then assessing the applications for that limit