Where Does Mortgage-Lending Policy Go From Here?

The judgement in the landmark case between ASIC and Westpac was handed down earlier this week (read more here). ASIC had taken Westpac to court for breaching responsible lending laws more than 250,000 times by using the household expenditure measure (HEM) when the declared household expenses were higher than the HEM.

In September last year, Westpac had agreed to pay a $35 million settlement to ASIC and admit that they breached responsible lending laws. In November 2018, Justice Nye Perram…