Two sides of one line
The National Credit Code is Schedule 1 to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, part of the single national consumer credit regime that ASIC administers. ASIC’s responsible lending guide says the responsible lending obligations apply only to credit products provided to individuals and strata corporations for personal, domestic and household purposes, or for buying or improving residential investment property. Its examples include home loans, reverse mortgages, residential investment loans, personal loans, credit cards and consumer leases.
On the far side, ASIC is just as plain. A loan made wholly or predominantly for a business purpose is outside the responsible lending obligations, it says, even when an individual borrows and offers their own home or other personal assets as security. The Privacy Act, in its credit reporting rules, has its own name for this side: “commercial credit means credit (other than consumer credit) that is applied for by, or provided to, a person.”
The far side is not empty. ASIC’s guide says small business borrowers, though outside the responsible lending provisions, have the benefit of a range of other protections, and that lenders must comply with the separate laws that apply to them.
Five guides along the line
Each guide is marked with where it stands: on the line itself, or on the business side of it.
- On the line
Personal or business purpose
The Code’s “more than half” test, what it ignores, the purpose declaration, and loans with mixed purposes.
- Outside the Code
What a business borrower has instead
What stays behind the line, and the protections the sources name on the business side.
- On the line
Investment and the Code’s line
Why residential investment property sits inside the Code while shares and managed funds generally sit outside it.
- Outside the Code
Disputes for a small business borrower
The routes that stay open on both sides of the line, and the Code’s own tools that do not cross it.
- On the line
What the Code leaves out
Kinds of credit the Code excludes by name, margin loans among them, and an exclusion that narrowed in 2025.
Where to check for yourself
- The National Credit Code itself, on the Federal Register of Legislation. Section 5 sets out which credit it covers.
- The Australian Financial Complaints Authority, for a complaint a lender has not resolved. ASIC’s complaints guide (September 2021) records that the AFCA Rules define a small business as one with fewer than 100 employees at the time of the events complained about.
- The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, which runs an information line and a dispute support service.
- The National Debt Helpline’s small business page, which describes the Small Business Debt Helpline as help for small business owners and sole traders in financial difficulty.
About this guide
Commercial Finance is a guide published by Dotto. It explains where consumer credit law stops and what the sources say lies beyond it, in plain words, with the sources for each page listed at its foot. Rules and figures are given as they read on 8 October 2026; check the source before relying on any of them.