Could the ASIC HEM failure tighten mortgage lending?

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There is one reason to think so today, via AFR:

Westpac Group is set to follow up its landmark victory against ASIC on responsible lending with sweeping changes to home lending policies that include more rigorous assessment, deep diving into household spending, and new debt-to-income analysis of higher-risk loans.

The bank is also planning to announce it is expanding expense categories from 13 to 18 and is upgrading its controversial Household Expenditure Measure (HEM) and treatment of other living expense changes.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.