Lenders must continue to focus on improving hardship support for customers in financial distress. Despite significant improvements following last year's landmark review, ASIC has ongoing concerns about hardship practices.
ASIC Commissioner Kate O'Rourke welcomed the progress made by lenders in their approach to customer experience and outcomes outlined in Report 815 Hardship, not so hard to get help (REP 815), released today, following concerns raised by ASIC in May 2024 and published in Report 782 Hardship, hard to get help: Findings and actions to support customers in financial hardship (REP 782).
Examples of improvements by lenders include:
- increased customer awareness of the availability of hardship assistance
- corrections to policies and training materials
- improvements in the identification of hardship notices
- greater flexibility in how information is collected, and
- the removal of default requests for large amounts of customer information.
Following the report in 2024 highlighting poor hardship practices, ASIC required each lender that received tailored feedback to respond with an action plan outlining the proposed improvements. In some cases, ASIC requested external independent assurance that improvements had been implemented and were effective in addressing ASIC's feedback.
'Since our review, we have seen lenders work to uplift their hardship practices and to better support their customers experiencing hardship,' Commissioner O'Rourke said. 'However, we have some concerns about the overall quality of lenders' hardship responses.'
'For example, consumer groups and financial counsellors continue to tell us there are still lenders taking a cookie-cutter approach to hardship, rather than tailoring responses to the customer's individual circumstances.
'ASIC will continue to monitor lenders' actions in this area.'
Commissioner O'Rourke said, 'We urge all lenders to adopt a proactive, continuous improvement approach to supporting their customers experiencing financial hardship, and to ensure adequate focus on customer experience and outcomes in their practices.
'Financial hardship assistance continues to be a key focus area for ASIC, particularly as some consumers continue to experience cost-of-living pressures.'
ASIC will continue to monitor the progress of lenders requested to provide action plans, including reviewing the reports from the independent reviewers.
ASIC has taken decisive action against lenders for alleged breaches and alleged contraventions of their obligations towards borrowers, including NAB and its subsidiary AFSH Nominees (25-254MR), Westpac (23-242MR), ANZ (25-201MR) and non-bank lender Resimac (25-081MR) and will take further action where lenders fail to comply with their obligations.
In August 2025, the Federal Court ordered NAB to pay a penalty of $15.5 million for failing to respond to customers' hardship notices within the time required by law. In September 2025, ASIC and ANZ asked the Federal Court to impose a $40 million penalty on ANZ for failing to respond to customers' hardship notices within the time required by law and failing to have proper hardship processes in place.
Background
In August 2023, ASIC issued a letter to CEOs of lenders advising of our heightened focus on financial hardship and expectations around their obligations to customers. ASIC also advised of an ongoing data collection from 30 large lenders to understand their financial hardship approaches, as well as an end-to-end review of the hardship policies, processes and practices of 10 of those lenders.
In May 2024, ASIC published the findings of the data collection and the review in Report 782 Hardship, hard to get help: Findings and actions to support customers in financial hardship (REP 782) and its summary version Report 783 Hardship, hard to get help: Lenders fall short in financial hardship support (REP 783). The report showed that while most lenders acknowledged the need to do more - with some already undertaking programs to improve their approaches - most weren't doing enough.
More information
- Report 782 Hardship, hard to get help: Findings and actions to support customers in financial hardship (REP 782)
- Report 783 Hardship, hard to get help: Lenders fall short in financial hardship support (REP 783)
