Lender fined $16m for overcharging vulnerable customers

A now defunct short-term money lender has been fined $16 million after the Federal Court found it entered into contracts involving prohibited fees and overcharged customers.

The court found in September that Ferratum had contravened Australian consumer laws and had an inadequate system for calculating, recording and monitoring early payout amounts.

On Friday, Justice Geoffrey Kennett ordered the company pay a total of $16 million to the Commonwealth, stating it had over a long period failed to deal with "obvious and persistent" deficiencies in its systems for calculating the amounts payable by customers.

Financial watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, had been seeking a penalty of $20 million after it launched the legal action.

"The failure persisted over a period of years despite the attention of ASIC and promises to do better," he said.

ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court described Ferratum's conduct as "egregious". (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)

Liquidators were appointed to Ferratum on April 4, 2023 after it was resolved for the company to be wound up.

Justice Kennett stated that while the amounts involved in the individual contraventions were small, each involved a potentially vulnerable individual consumer.

"In view of the nature of Ferratum's business, the great majority of those customers can be taken to have been persons of very limited means who were vulnerable to exploitation," he said.

"The amounts involved could well have been significant for some customers."

Justice Kenneth said the problems appear to have persisted in large part, because Ferratum's Finland-based parent company, Multitude SE, paid little or no attention to Australian regulatory requirements.

He found Multitude played a significant role in the contraventions, including establishing the systems that led to them, and in subsequent responses to concerns of the financial watchdog.

"It is appropriate that the orders made should seek to deter Multitude SE against taking a similar approach to doing business in Australia in future in the event that it seeks to re-enter the market,' Justice Kennett said.

ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court described Ferratum's conduct as "egregious".

"This significant penalty is the latest outcome in ASIC's ongoing work to combat consumer harm resulting from high-cost credit," she said.