The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) set out its 2025 supervisory focus and near-term regulatory agenda, including a consultation to update its residential mortgage lending guidance on how authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) treat Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) obligations in serviceability assessments and reporting. APRA’s baseline expectation remains that banks and credit unions should consider HELP repayments in serviceability assessments, but it is consulting on changes to APG 223 Residential Mortgage Lending to clarify that ADIs may remove HELP repayments by exception where a borrower is expected to pay off their HELP debt in the near term. APRA also proposed excluding HELP debts from debt-to-income reporting. Macroprudential settings remain under review, with the mortgage serviceability buffer at 3 percentage points and the countercyclical capital buffer at 1 per cent of risk-weighted assets, against a backdrop of high household debt at 190 per cent of incomes and close monitoring of credit growth. The update also highlighted intensified scrutiny of superannuation fund expenditure, with newly released data showing total industry expenditure of AUD 12.7 billion for the year ending June 2024, up 15 per cent year on year, and referenced recent enforcement actions including licence conditions imposed on Cbus and BUSSQ, an additional AUD 10 million capital requirement for Pacific International Insurance, and an increase in ANZ’s capital add-on to AUD 750 million. Several cross-industry initiatives were flagged as taking effect in 2025, including the extension of the Financial Accountability Regime to APRA-regulated entities in insurance and superannuation from mid-March, commencement of CPS 230 operational risk management requirements from 1 July, and APRA’s first financial system-wide stress test. APRA also indicated it will shortly release a discussion paper to begin updating its prudential standards on governance.
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority 2025-02-27
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority consults on HELP debt treatment in mortgage serviceability and debt-to-income reporting
APRA's 2025 focus includes updating mortgage lending guidance for ADIs concerning HELP obligations, potentially excluding HELP repayments from serviceability assessments and debt-to-income reporting. Macroprudential settings are under review, with a 3% mortgage serviceability buffer and a 1% countercyclical capital buffer. APRA will scrutinize superannuation fund expenditure and recent enforcement actions. Key initiatives include extending the Financial Accountability Regime to insurance and superannuation entities, implementing CPS 230 operational risk management, and conducting a system-wide stress test. A discussion paper on updating governance prudential standards will be released soon.