Pitch Engine
The Times Real Estate

.

None of the justifications for weakening bank lending standards quite makes sense

  • Written by Kevin Davis, Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne

The budget plan to scrap Australia’s decade-old responsible lending obligations warrants detailed examination.

It is hard to see how the stated reasons for easing what’s asked of banks and other lenders make much sense, and the timing is strange.

Introduced in 2009, the responsible lending obligations made it illegal to offer credit...

Read more: None of the justifications for weakening bank lending standards quite makes sense

More Articles ...

  1. A question for the treasurer: how do you treat mental health without measuring well-being?
  2. Social housing was one hell of a missed budget opportunity, but there's time
  3. It's not the size of the budget deficit that counts; it's how you use it
  4. High-viz, narrow vision: the budget overlooks the hardest hit in favour of the hardest hats
  5. This budget will only work if business and consumers play ball
  6. The budget's tax cuts have their critics, but this year they make fiscal sense
  7. Budget 2020: promising tax breaks, but relying on hope
  8. Budget 2020: Frydenberg tells Australians, ‘we have your back’
  9. Don't worry about the debt: we need more stimulus to avoid a prolonged recession
  10. The Brussels Finance Conference of 1920: a lesson in the perils of focusing on the past
  11. Big budget spending isn't new: it's a return to what worked before
  12. The bad bits of ParentsNext just came back
  13. Vital Signs: how to time a bombshell like Trump's tax returns
  14. The 5-prong plan for a budget that will set us up for the future
  15. Meet the Liveable Income Guarantee: a budget-ready proposal that would prevent unemployment benefits falling off a cliff
  16. Which Australian destinations lose, and which may win, without international tourism
  17. Each budget used to have a gender impact statement. We need it back, especially now
  18. Going cashless isn't straightforward. Ask Sweden, or Zimbabwe
  19. It's about to become easier to lend irresponsibly, to help the recovery
  20. We're facing an insolvency tsunami. With luck, these changes will avert the worst of it
  21. Top economists back boosts to JobSeeker and social housing over tax cuts in pre-budget poll
  22. Frydenberg is setting his budget ambition dangerously low
  23. Google and Facebook shouldn't subsidise journalism, but the government could
  24. Testamentary trusts are one of the last truly outrageous means of avoiding tax
  25. Keating is right. The Reserve Bank should do more. It needs to aim for more inflation
  26. New Zealand companies lag behind others in their reporting on climate change, and that's a risk to their reputation
  27. It's not only Westpac. What's behind the biggest fine in Australian corporate history
  28. More neurotic, less agreeable, less conscientious: how job insecurity shapes your personality
  29. 'If JobSeeker was cut, the unemployed would be picking fruit'? Why that's not true
  30. Why do bankers behave so badly? They make too much money to ask questions
  31. The major parties' tax promises are more about ideology and psychology than equity or fairness for New Zealanders
  32. Yes government debt is cheap, but that doesn't mean it comes risk-free
  33. Athlete activism or corporate woke washing? Getting it right in the age of Black Lives Matter is a tough game
  34. Vital Signs: 50 years ago Milton Friedman told us greed was good. He was half right
  35. Who suffers most from Melbourne’s extended lockdown? Hint: they are not necessarily particularly vocal 
  36. Super funds are feeling the financial heat from climate change
  37. Tasmania's tax system is broken: here are three ways to fix it
  38. 3 keys to meaningful work: an employer who cares about the environment, society and you
  39. In gold we trust: why bullion is still a safe haven in times of crisis
  40. Are your devices spying on you? Australia's very small step to make the Internet of Things safer
  41. The sackings at Rio look like a victory for shareholders, but...
  42. Corporate dysfunction on Indigenous affairs: Why heads rolled at Rio Tinto
  43. Winding back JobKeeper and JobSeeker will push 740,000 Australians into poverty
  44. Vital Signs: batch testing and contact tracing are the two keys to stop the lockdown yo-yo
  45. Relax, losing access to China won't make us the 'poor white trash of Asia'
  46. With their conservative promises, Labour and National lock in existing unfairness in New Zealand's tax system
  47. Clive Palmer versus (Western) Australia. He could survive a High Court loss if his company is found to be “foreign”
  48. China's leaders are strong and emboldened. It's wrong to see them as weak and insecure
  49. Now we'll need $100-$120 billion. Why the budget has to spend big to avoid scarring
  50. The modelling behind Melbourne's extended city-wide lockdown is problematic