The Australian Securities & Investments Commission has filed civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court against home loan manager Resimac Limited, alleging it failed to appropriately handle financial hardship applications from thousands of customers in breach of its Australian credit licence obligations. The regulator alleges the conduct occurred between 1 January 2022 and 15 February 2024 and contravened the requirement for credit licensees to act efficiently, honestly and fairly. Resimac, which manages non-bank loans provided by Perpetual Trustee Company Limited, is alleged to have applied a standardised approach to hardship requests by routinely seeking extensive information from vulnerable customers without assessing what was relevant or reasonably necessary given individual circumstances or existing information, and then summarily rejecting applications when customers did not provide the standard information. ASIC is seeking declarations, penalties, adverse publicity orders and costs, and described the proceedings as its first action against a credit licensee focused on alleged failures in assessing hardship applications, alongside ongoing cases against Westpac and National Australia Bank concerning time limits for responding to hardship notices.

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