{
  "service": "Creditcrest Small Amount",
  "what": "A small or medium amount credit contract costed the way the Code prices one: what is paid, when, and the protected earnings amount tested period by period.",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "compilations": {
    "act": "National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth), compilation No. 52, compilation date 1 July 2026, includes amendments up to Act No. 57, 2026.",
    "code": "National Credit Code (Schedule 1 to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009), in the same compilation.",
    "regulations": "National Consumer Credit Protection Regulations 2010 (Cth), compilation No. 57, compilation date 5 September 2026."
  },
  "not_advice": "Creditcrest Technologies is not a credit provider, is not a credit assistance provider, and does not hold an Australian credit licence. Its software produces evidence; the licensee makes the decision.",
  "not_a_decision": "This states what a contract costs, what the Act and the Code require of it, and which findings a licensee has to deal with. It does not decide whether the contract is unsuitable, does not decide whether to lend, and does not rate the consumer. Creditcrest Technologies is not a credit provider, is not a credit assistance provider, and does not hold an Australian credit licence. Its software produces evidence; the licensee makes the decision.",
  "typed_income_is_not_verification": "The income figure on this page was typed in. Sections 117(1A) and 130(1A) require a licensee assessing a small amount credit contract to obtain and consider each transaction and the balances on the consumer’s income account for at least the preceding 90 days, and a number in a form is not that. Creditcrest Statement reads those ninety days; the figure it verifies is what belongs here.",
  "protected_earnings_changed": "The protected earnings amount is 10% of the consumer’s available income — income less PAYG withholding — and it applies to every consumer. Until the Financial Sector Reform Act 2022 commenced it was 20% of gross income and applied only where at least half the consumer’s income was a social security payment. A figure taken from an account of the old regime commits MORE than twice as much of a household’s income as the law now allows — twice over, once on the percentage and again on the move from gross income to net.",
  "presumptions_were_repealed": "Two rebuttable presumptions of unsuitability used to apply to small amount credit contracts — that the consumer is in default under another one, and that the consumer has been a debtor under two or more of them in the preceding 90 days. Reading the compiled Act, Schedule 4 Part 1 of the Financial Sector Reform Act 2022 repealed all four subsections that raised them: ss 118(3A), 123(3A), 131(3A) and 133(3A). That reading was reproduced on 26 September 2026 from compilation No. 52 of the Act on the Federal Register: none of the four sections has a subsection (3A) any more. Either fact is still worth putting in front of an assessor, and a lender’s own policy may make either one a referral.",
  "stores": "nothing",
  "caps": {
    "saccCreditLimit": 2000,
    "maccCreditLimitFrom": 2001,
    "maccCreditLimitTo": 5000,
    "minimumTermDays": 16,
    "saccMaximumTermDays": 365,
    "maccMaximumTermDays": 730,
    "establishmentFeeShare": 0.2,
    "monthlyFeeShare": 0.04,
    "defaultRecoveryMultiple": 2,
    "protectedEarningsShare": 0.1,
    "annualCostRateCap": 0.48,
    "maccFeeOutsideTheRate": 400,
    "lastRepaymentShortfall": 0.05,
    "statementDays": 90,
    "servicesAustraliaStatementDays": 21
  },
  "takes": [
    {
      "name": "ref",
      "kind": "text",
      "label": "File reference",
      "hint": "Whatever the licensee calls this application. It is printed on the page and it is in the link, so it should be a reference and not a person’s name."
    },
    {
      "name": "amount",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Amount of credit",
      "hint": "Dollars. The first amount of credit to be provided under the contract. Under $2,000 and unsecured it may be a small amount credit contract; from $2,001 to $5,000 it may be a medium amount one.",
      "required": true
    },
    {
      "name": "capitalised",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "…of which is a fee added to the loan",
      "hint": "Dollars. Section 204(3)(a) disregards a fee amount that forms part of the first amount of credit when working out the adjusted credit amount, so capitalising a fee does not raise the cap on the fee."
    },
    {
      "name": "entered",
      "kind": "day",
      "label": "Credit first provided on",
      "hint": "The day the contract is entered into. The monthly fee runs from this day under s 31A(1)(b), and the first repayment period under reg 28LCA(3)(a) starts on it.",
      "required": true
    },
    {
      "name": "first",
      "kind": "day",
      "label": "First repayment due on",
      "hint": null,
      "required": true
    },
    {
      "name": "repayments",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Number of repayments",
      "hint": null,
      "required": true
    },
    {
      "name": "cadence",
      "kind": "choice",
      "label": "Repaid",
      "hint": "Section 133CD(4) deems the intervals equal where repayments fall on a fixed day of each week, fortnight or month, which is why an ordinary monthly contract does not breach s 133CD(1)(b) on a 31-day month.",
      "options": [
        "monthly",
        "fortnightly",
        "weekly"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "secured",
      "kind": "choice",
      "label": "The debtor’s obligations are",
      "hint": "Paragraph (e) of the s 5(1) definition. A secured contract is not a small amount credit contract however small it is, and the definition is what decides which fee cap applies — so this is not defaulted.",
      "options": [
        "no",
        "yes"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "continuing",
      "kind": "choice",
      "label": "Continuing credit",
      "hint": "Paragraph (a) of both definitions. A contract under which multiple advances are contemplated and available credit rises as credit is repaid is a continuing credit contract and is outside both.",
      "options": [
        "yes"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "establishment",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Establishment fee",
      "hint": "Dollars. Left empty, the contract is costed at the cap — which is the most it could charge, and is marked as assumed."
    },
    {
      "name": "monthly",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Monthly fee",
      "hint": "Dollars a month. Left empty, costed at the cap."
    },
    {
      "name": "rate",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Annual percentage rate",
      "hint": "Per cent a year; 48 means 48%. For a medium amount credit contract only. A small amount credit contract may not impose an interest charge at all (s 23A(1)(a)), and a rate entered against one is reported as a contravention rather than costed."
    },
    {
      "name": "refinance",
      "kind": "choice",
      "label": "Refinances another small amount credit contract",
      "hint": "Section 31A(1A) permits no establishment fee at all where any of the credit refinances another small amount credit contract.",
      "options": [
        "yes"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "income",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Available income",
      "hint": "Dollars a month, AFTER tax. Reg 28LCA(3) measures available income as income less PAYG withholding, which is what lands in a bank account. A gross figure here would allow half as much again to be committed as the law permits."
    },
    {
      "name": "others",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Payable under other small amount credit contracts",
      "hint": "Dollars per repayment period. Reg 28LCA(2)(b) counts these towards the same 10%. Left empty, the test below is reported as understated rather than as passed."
    },
    {
      "name": "residence",
      "kind": "choice",
      "label": "Could only comply by selling their home",
      "hint": "The one rebuttable presumption of unsuitability the Act still raises, in ss 131(3) and 133(3). It is rebuttable — “unless the contrary is proved” — and what rebuts it is the licensee’s to record.",
      "options": [
        "no",
        "yes"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "split",
      "kind": "choice",
      "label": "Part of an arrangement split across several contracts",
      "hint": "Reg 28LCF(2). Not a presumption: where the limbs are met the contract is unsuitable and there is nothing to rebut.",
      "options": [
        "no",
        "yes"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "benefit",
      "kind": "choice",
      "label": "Receives a social security payment",
      "hint": "Reg 28HB(6) requires the licensee to ascertain this. Where the answer is yes, reg 28HB(7) requires a Services Australia income statement and deduction statement, each issued within the preceding 21 days.",
      "options": [
        "no",
        "yes"
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "days",
      "kind": "number",
      "label": "Days of account statements obtained",
      "hint": "Sections 117(1A) and 130(1A) require at least 90. This reports what was obtained; whether it was considered is a question about a person’s reasoning and this page does not answer it."
    }
  ],
  "examples": [
    {
      "title": "A $1,000 small amount credit contract at the caps",
      "what": "Six monthly repayments. The establishment fee is 20% of $1,000 and the monthly fee is 4% of it, so $440 of fees on $1,000 of credit, repaid as six instalments of $240.",
      "query": "amount=1000&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=6&cadence=monthly&secured=no&establishment=200&monthly=40&income=3200&others=0",
      "url": "/small-amount?amount=1000&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=6&cadence=monthly&secured=no&establishment=200&monthly=40&income=3200&others=0"
    },
    {
      "title": "The same contract, with another lender already taking $60 a period",
      "what": "It passes in every month but February, where 28 days of income makes the 10% cap $294.58 against $300 of repayments. Section 133CC(1) does not permit entering into it.",
      "query": "amount=1000&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=6&cadence=monthly&secured=no&establishment=200&monthly=40&income=3200&others=60",
      "url": "/small-amount?amount=1000&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=6&cadence=monthly&secured=no&establishment=200&monthly=40&income=3200&others=60"
    },
    {
      "title": "A $3,000 medium amount credit contract at the 48% ceiling",
      "what": "Twelve monthly repayments at 48% a year with a $400 establishment fee. The annual cost rate under s 32B comes out at the cap, because the $400 sits outside it under the F term.",
      "query": "amount=3000&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=12&cadence=monthly&establishment=400&rate=48&income=4200&others=0",
      "url": "/small-amount?amount=3000&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=12&cadence=monthly&establishment=400&rate=48&income=4200&others=0"
    },
    {
      "title": "A $1,500 contract secured over a car",
      "what": "Paragraph (e) of s 5(1) is not met, so it is not a small amount credit contract; nor is it a medium amount one, because $1,500 is below the floor. Neither fee cap applies and neither does the protected earnings amount.",
      "query": "amount=1500&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=12&cadence=monthly&secured=yes&income=3200",
      "url": "/small-amount?amount=1500&entered=2026-10-01&first=2026-11-01&repayments=12&cadence=monthly&secured=yes&income=3200"
    }
  ],
  "endpoints": {
    "/small-amount": "The costing, as a page.",
    "/small-amount/the-provisions": "Every provision this surface relies on, quoted.",
    "/v1/small-amount": "The same costing, as data.",
    "/v1/small-amount/provisions": "The provisions, as data."
  }
}