Hardship test up to the courts

It will be up to the courts to determine the meaning behind terms such as 'hardship' and 'appropriate' in the new credit licensing law, ASIC commissioner Peter Boxall told a Melbourne Centre for Financial Studies conference yesterday.

Providing an overview of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission consultation paper on their proposed licensing regime, Boxall said ASIC had no say in what hardship meant.
 He said what ASIC would look to in assessing licences was the process a lender used to consider hardship.

Boxall said he also wanted feedback from the industry over the test in the new law over appropriate credit.

While ASIC provided some examples in its consultation paper, he said he was hopeful lenders would not react to legal advice that could overwhelm lenders and borrowers with paperwork and disclosure documents that increased the cost of transactions.