Creditcrest Collections

Hardship on the statutory clock: what the dates give, and the provision each period comes from.

The notice

Whatever the provider calls this matter. It is printed on the page and it is in the link — so it should be a reference, not a person’s name.

A consumer lease has the same periods under different sections, and this quotes whichever set applies.

The day it arrived, not the day somebody filed it. Every period in s 72 runs from this day.

Where the file records a range, every period runs from the earliest day in it.

REP 782 para 335(a). A hardship notice may be given orally (s 72(1)), and ASIC found those are the ones most often missed — so whether this channel is an oral one is read off the list rather than guessed from what somebody typed.

REP 782 para 335(b). A fact about the file. Whether it should change anything the provider does is not this page’s to say, and it does not say it.

REP 782 para 335(c). ASIC’s own categories, from Table 15 of that report, separated by commas where more than one applies — ASIC’s note on the figure says a customer could give more than one. A category is not the borrower’s words and does not replace them.

Any of, separated by commas: overcommitment (overcommitment), reduced_income (reduced income), unemployment (unemployment), medical (medical), separation (separation), bereavement (bereavement), business_downturn (business downturn or failure), parental_leave (parental leave), abuse (abuse), natural_disaster (natural disaster), other (other).

The day the provider’s own systems recorded it as one. It starts no clock, and the gap is reported.

What has happened since

Leave a field blank where nothing happened. A period this page is not told about is a period it cannot report on, and it says so rather than assuming.

A notice under s 72(2). The provider may give one, once, within 21 days.

Item 2 of the s 72(5) table runs 28 days from this date, not from the day the notice was sent.

Item 3 runs 21 days from this day — but only where the information came inside the time the notice gave for it.

The notice under s 72(4).

Section 89A holds enforcement until a notice saying the parties did not agree has been given and 14 days have passed.

REP 782 para 335(e). Free text, because a decline reason reduced to a dropdown code is the “overly generic” reason ASIC found inadequate at para 275. Up to 600 characters, printed as a quotation of the file and never as this page’s own words. This page does not judge whether it is adequate — and remember that whatever is typed here travels in the link.

The date of the agreement, which is what the 30 days in s 73(1) run from. It is asked for separately because it need not be the day the decision was posted.

Sections 72(4A) and 73(1A) remove both notices where a change defers or reduces obligations for not more than 90 days. Every lender ASIC reviewed gave them anyway.

REP 782 para 335(f). ASIC’s own kinds, from Tables 8 to 10 of that report, separated by commas — ASIC saw them offered in combination as often as singly.

Any of, separated by commas: deferral (deferral), payment_arrangement (reduced payment arrangement), interest_only (interest-only repayments), term_extension (term extension), capitalisation_of_arrears (capitalisation of arrears), arrears_payment_arrangement (arrears payment arrangement), serviceability_period (serviceability period), interest_rate_reduction (interest rate reduction), supported_sale (supported sale of the property), other (another kind of assistance, recorded on the file).

The written notice under s 73(1).

Recorded, and not treated as closing anything: ASIC counts a withdrawal as dropping out of the process rather than as an outcome.

RG 271.93 puts a hardship complaint on a 21 calendar day maximum of its own.

A notice under s 88.

Section 88(1)(b) requires at least 30 days from the date of the notice.

A request under s 94(1). It creates a second, independent hold on enforcement.

Days, separated by commas. One inside the four months before this notice is what s 89A(1)(c) turns on.

Changes made to a due date

Two dates on a matter are the provider’s and may be moved: the day the borrower is being given to supply the information (borrower-information-due) and the day the provider is working to for its own decision (decision-working-due). The days the Code sets may not be, and an attempt to move one is kept on the trail and answered rather than thrown away. Every line carries a reason, and the reason travels in the link.

One per line, each written as which date | the day it moves to | the day the amendment was made | why. The day it was made may be left empty; the reason may not. Every line is kept and shown, including one that moves nothing.

An arrangement, if one is being considered

All four of the balance, the rate, the contractual repayment and the length are needed before anything is projected. Nothing is estimated to fill a gap.

Dollars.

Per cent a year. 6.5 means 6.5%.

Dollars a month, under the contract as it stands.

Whole months.

Dollars. Used only for a reduced payment.

The day to read the clock on

Defaults to today in Australian Eastern time. Set it and the link answers the same way whenever it is opened.

What this does

A hardship notice starts a clock. The credit provider may ask for information once, within 21 days. It must give notice of its decision before the end of a period the Code sets out in a table, and which of the three rows of that table applies depends on what was asked for and when it arrived. If the answer is no, s 89A then holds enforcement until that notice has been given and fourteen days have passed.

None of that is a judgement. All of it is dates — and dates are what the Federal Court ordered NAB and AFSH Nominees to pay $15.5 million over in August 2025, and what ASIC and ANZ asked the court for $40 million over the month after.

So: put the dates in, and this says which period applies, what it comes from, when it ends and where today falls against it, with the provision quoted beside every one. It does not decide anything.

The six fields ASIC could not get out of any lender

ASIC asked ten large home lenders for their hardship data. Six things none of them could reliably hand over: how the notice arrived, whether a financial counsellor or anybody else was acting for the borrower, what the borrower said the hardship was, whether information was asked for and when it was answered, the reason a notice was declined, and what assistance was given. Not because the facts were unknown to the lender — because they sat in free-text notes, or nowhere at all.

Every matter on this clock carries all six, recorded against ASIC’s own lists where ASIC published one. A field that is not recorded is printed as not recorded, in the same box the overdue deadlines get, because a blank cell reads as nothing to report and that is the whole finding.

Recording a fact is not a judgement about it. That a financial counsellor acted for the borrower is a fact about the file; whether it should have changed anything the provider did is a person’s question and this page does not answer it. The same goes for the decline reason: that one was recorded is a fact, whether it was adequate is not.

ASIC Report 782 (May 2024), paras 335–337, in its own words
ASIC Report 782 (May 2024), paras 335–337Some examples of the data or data fields that lenders were unable to provide included: (a) the channel through which the hardship notice was received; (b) whether the customer was represented by a third party (e.g. a financial counsellor); (c) the customer’s reason for giving a hardship notice; (d) whether information requests had been made and if so, the dates on which those information requests had been and the date of the customer’s response; (e) the reason for declining the customer’s hardship notice; and (f) the specific type of assistance provided. … The most common reasons for lenders not being able to provide this information was that it was not captured in a structured way in the lender’s system. In some cases, this information was captured in free-text notes that lenders could extract with some effort and caveats but in other cases it could not be produced at all. … We are concerned that some of the information that lenders were unable to produce was relevant to allowing the lender to monitor whether they were complying with legislative timeframes (e.g. dates of information requests), and in monitoring customer experience and outcomes (e.g. reasons for declines).
ASIC Report 782 (May 2024), the practical action beside para 338, in its own words
ASIC Report 782 (May 2024), the practical action beside para 338Lenders should ensure there are adequate systems and technology to manage the end-to-end hardship process, including adequate data capture of key fields to support compliance with legislative timeframes and to monitor customer outcomes.

The notices the provisions require, and which of them exist

Every hardship penalty in Australia so far — Westpac $26 million, ANZ $40 million, NAB and AFSH Nominees $15.5 million — has been about a piece of paper that did not go out on time, and not one of them turned on whether the decision was right. The largest was about paper that never went out at all: in ASIC v Westpac [2026] FCA 651 at least 1,013 applications from 1,003 customers were never processed and 277 people received no written decision. It was found in January 2022 because a customer telephoned to ask what had happened to their application. A reconciliation report existed and its exceptions were never escalated.

So every matter here carries a ledger: each notice the provisions require for the events on the file, either recorded with the day it was given or marked as not produced, with the number of days of its period that have run printed beside it. A notice that does not exist is as visible as one that does, because that is the entire finding.

A due date can be moved, and every move is shown. ASIC also found a lender whose hardship system would not allow a decision due date to be altered once set, so customers were declined before the deadline for supplying the information they had been asked for had expired. Two dates on a matter here are the provider’s and may be moved; each change carries a reason, the trail is appended to rather than written over, and an attempt to move a day the Code sets is kept on the trail and answered rather than thrown away.

The ledger is sealed. It is hashed through the same record.js that seals a credit assessment, and the page shows the same ledger with one line changed failing to verify — because a seal nobody checks proves nothing.

None of it is a finding. “No notice is recorded under s 72(4)” is a fact about a file and a reader can draw their own conclusion from it. Whether an obligation was contravened is a legal conclusion, it belongs to somebody holding a credit licence, and this page does not state one.

Worked examples

Each of these is a link. Open one, change a date, and watch the deadline move — which is the only way to check that a clock is telling the truth.

A decision that never came

A notice given by phone on 1 August, information asked for on the 5th, nothing received, and no decision. Item 2 of the s 72(5) table gives 28 days from the stated date — so the period ended on 2 September.

Information that arrived too late to be item 3

The same file, with the information arriving on 1 October. Read from the day it arrived the period would end on 22 October; read from the provision it ended on 2 September, seven weeks earlier.

An arrangement that does not repay the debt

A $420,000 balance at 6.2%, a $2,580 contractual repayment, and $600 a month for twelve months. The payment is less than the interest, so the balance grows every month of it.

A file that cannot answer four of ASIC’s six questions

A decline, on dates that are all present and correct. How the notice arrived, whether anybody was acting for the borrower, what the borrower said the hardship was and why the provider did not agree are none of them recorded, and the page says so rather than showing four blanks.

The same file, with all six recorded

Every deadline is identical. What changed is that the file can now be counted — and the decline reason is printed as a quotation of the file, which this page does not judge.

A notice that does not exist, on a file where every date is present

The 1 August file again. The ledger lists every notice the provisions require on these events, says that no notice is recorded under s 72(4), and prints how many days of the 28 have run beside it — 45, of the 28 the period allows.

A due date that moved, and one that could not

The same file with two amendments. The borrower’s own day moves from 26 August to 9 September with the reason recorded; the day s 72(5) sets for the decision notice does not move, and the attempt to move it stays in the trail rather than disappearing. Extending the borrower’s day does not extend the provider’s, and the ledger says so with both dates on it.

A four-month lookback that lands on a month boundary

A notice on 30 November with an earlier one on 30 July. That is 123 days, so a four-month window counted as 122 days would miss it — and enforcement would read as clear on a matter s 89A may well still hold.

What this page does not know

Whether the dates are right. Everything above is arithmetic on the days in the address bar. If a notice arrived a week before the day somebody typed, every deadline on this page is a week late, and this page has no way to tell.

Whether a notice was a hardship notice. A notice may be given orally and in no particular words, so whether a phone call was one is a person’s reading of a person’s words. ASIC’s largest finding was that lenders missed them; nothing here classifies a call note, because a classifier that missed one would produce a file positively asserting there was none.

Whether s 89A applies at all. Where an earlier hardship notice falls inside the four months, s 89A(1)(c) turns on whether the provider reasonably believes the basis of this one is materially different. That is a belief a named person holds, this page cannot take one from a query string, and it therefore reports enforcement as held.

Whether the reasons for a decline are good enough. That is what a person reading the letter decides. The sealed-file side of this product checks that a decline letter engages with its own file; this page does not hold a letter.

Anything about credit reporting. Whether an arrangement is reported as a financial hardship arrangement is a Privacy Act 1988 question rather than a Code one, it lands on somebody’s credit file for two years, and it is deliberately out of scope rather than silently omitted.

What the provider’s own procedure says. A provider may hold itself to seven days where the Code allows twenty-one, and many should. That is the editable procedure file in the product rather than a field on this page.