Clarifying the treatment of Higher Education Loan Program debt obligations
This page contains relevant information regarding APRA’s consultation on clarifying the treatment of Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debt obligations within APRA’s prudential and reporting frameworks.
February 2025
On 20 February 2025, APRA released a letter to industry initiating a consultation on the treatment of HELP debt obligations within APRA’s prudential and reporting frameworks. The letter sets out the objectives of the consultation, clarifies APRA’s expectations on the treatment of HELP debt obligations, and proposes targeted amendments for consultation.
The letter to industry, draft Prudential Practice Guide APG 223 Residential Mortgage Lending, and draft Reporting Standard ARS 223.0 Residential Mortgage Lending are available below.
Media release: APRA proposes updated approach to treatment of HELP debts.
Letter
Clarifying the treatment of HELP debt obligations
Draft reporting standard
Draft prudential practice guide
Note on submissions
It is APRA's policy to publish all submissions on the APRA website unless the respondent specifically tells APRA in writing that all or part of the submission is to remain confidential. An automatically generated confidentiality statement in an email does not satisfy this purpose. If you would like only part of your submission to be confidential, you should provide this information marked as 'confidential' in a separate attachment.
Submissions may be the subject of a request for access made under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOIA). APRA will determine such requests, if any, in accordance with the provisions of the FOIA. Information in the submission about any APRA-regulated entity that is not in the public domain and that is identified as confidential will be protected by section 56 of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Act 1998 and will therefore be exempt from production under the FOIA.