Responsible lending, in practice.
This page explains how we meet our NCCP responsible lending obligations — what we check, how we check it, and what we won't do.
Our framework
Under sections 128 to 133 of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act, we must:
- Make reasonable inquiries about your requirements and objectives
- Make reasonable inquiries about your financial situation
- Take reasonable steps to verify your financial situation
- Make a preliminary assessment that the credit contract is not unsuitable
- Provide you a written assessment on request (free of charge, within 7 days)
Requirements and objectives
In the apply flow, we ask:
- How much you want to borrow and over what term
- Your purpose for borrowing (car repair, bills, medical, moving, other — NCCP-required)
- How you intend to repay
If the amount or term doesn't match your stated purpose or repayment capacity, we recommend adjustments or decline.
Financial situation — inquiry
We collect:
- Employer, industry, length of employment
- Pay frequency and net income per pay cycle
- Residential costs (rent / mortgage)
- Declared expenses — utilities, transport, groceries, other fixed commitments
- Existing debts — BNPL, credit cards, other personal loans
- Dependants
Financial situation — verification
We don't rely solely on what you tell us. We verify by:
- Bank statement analysis — 90 days via illion. We confirm income arrives regularly in the declared amount and identify any expenses you didn't mention.
- Affordability calculation — we calculate your Household Expenditure Measure (HEM) or actual verified expenses (whichever is higher), subtract from income, and check the remaining surplus comfortably exceeds the proposed weekly repayment.
- Stress signals — we flag NSF fees, overdrawn days, high-cost credit use, and gambling activity. Flags don't automatically decline but trigger analyst review.
Suitability assessment
A SACC is "unsuitable" for you if:
- You could only repay with substantial hardship
- The loan does not meet your requirements or objectives
- You are in bankruptcy or Part IX debt agreement
- You have unpaid SACC loans with another lender within the last 90 days
- Repayments would exceed 20% of your Centrelink income (if applicable)
We assess every application against these criteria and decline when any apply.
Things we will not do
- We will not approve a loan we believe is unsuitable, even if you request it
- We will not offer you a larger loan than you applied for to increase fees
- We will not roll over a matured loan into a new one automatically
- We will not refinance an existing CashLift loan to extend your debt — if you need more time, use the hardship pathway
- We will not share your data with brokers or affiliates for cross-selling
Record-keeping
We retain your full application record — inquiry answers, verification evidence, affordability calculation, decision rationale, policy version applied — for at least 7 years. You can request your written assessment at any time, free of charge, by emailing support@cashlift.com.au. We respond within 7 business days.
Policy versions
Our credit and collections policies are versioned with effective dates. Every decision we make is stamped with the policy version in force at the time, so we can reconstruct exactly how an application was assessed months or years later. The current policy version is shown at the bottom of every decision notice.