Payday lender Nimble will refund more than A$1.5 million to 7000 customers after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission identified "significant deficiencies" in its compliance with the responsible lending requirements of the Credit Act.ASIC found that Nimble had not properly assessed the financial circumstances of many consumers before providing them with loans. Nimble relied on algorithms that did not take the borrower's actual financial information into account.Nimble failed to recognise when consumers were applying for repeat payday loans within a short period of time.And it failed to make proper inquiries about borrower's requirements and objectives. The inquiries that were made were general in nature and did not provide enough information for Nimble to fully understand the borrower's needs.In addition to paying the refunds, Nimble will make a $50,000 contribution to Financial Counselling Australia.It will engage an external compliance consultant to review its business operations and compliance with consumer credit law.Compliance with responsible lending rules has been a hot issue for ASIC in recent times. Last August it released a review of lending practices that showed numerous failures to meet the standards.In November it updated its lending conduct guide (RG 209).