The Australian Securities and Investments Commission reported that the Federal Court imposed an AUD 3.5 million penalty on Venture 5 Group, trading as CashnGo, over its use of and reliance on unfair terms in more than 47,000 standard form small amount credit contracts. CashnGo admitted including unfair terms and failing to issue legally compliant default notices to thousands of consumers. The terms allowed CashnGo to monitor consumers’ bank balances and repeatedly withdraw funds after missed repayments without prior notice of the timing, frequency or amount, and without allowing consumers to opt out. The practice could, and at times did, leave consumers with less than AUD 5 in their accounts. CashnGo admitted entering into more than 201,000 contracts containing unfair terms with over 85,000 consumers between April 2022 and May 2025, as well as at least 658,000 instances of applying or relying on certain unfair terms from November 2023 to June 2026. It also issued 67,545 noncompliant default notices affecting more than 53,000 consumers from March 2021 to June 2023. The default and account authority terms will be void from Sept. 14, 2026, when replacement terms must give consumers the right to opt out of unscheduled withdrawals. Indemnity and limitation of liability terms were declared void from the start of affected contracts entered into from April 20, 2022. CashnGo must notify consumers on its website, is permanently restrained from using the unfair or substantially similar terms in future contracts, and must pay the penalty in installments within two years.

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