CCCFA changes could remove personal liability on directors and senior managers

Instead, the focus is on whether directors and senior managers of financial institutions should be able to be indemnified or to insure against penalties for breaching their due diligence duty and whether disclosure obligations and penalties for their breaches are fit for purpose.

The government is also looking at effectively reducing penalties on financial institutions that don't provide required disclosure or provide inaccurate disclosure to borrowers.

The government is also looking at lowering the threshhold for the high-cost credit provisions – currently, the law captures lending with interest rates of 50% and above and the government is looking at lowering that to 30%.

While interest rates generally are currently regarded as high, the Reserve Bank's official cash rate is 5.5% and mainstream floating mortgage rates are below 9%.