Major misunderstandings persist - mainly in the media - on the detail and the consequences of responsible lending laws, ASIC Commissioner Sean Hughes told an industry conference yesterday."These claimed effects are either not supported by the facts or data, or, if they are real, they are the result of a fundamental misunderstanding and misapplication of the law."The first is the suggestion that small business lending is negatively affected by the responsible lending obligations," Hughes said.Poppycock, he did not say, instead explaining that they "apply to credit provided to individuals" a word stretched by ASIC to rope in loans to strata corporations for these same purposes."Otherwise, a loan to a company (including small proprietary companies) for any purpose is not subject to the responsible lending obligations," Hughes said."A loan to an individual for business purposes secured over a borrower's home is not subject to the responsible lending obligations."Hughes rebutted the suggestion "that ASIC's guidance and consultation has caused increases to credit application processing times or rejection rates … the evidence and data do not point to ASIC's guidance in RG 209 or our consultation to revise this guidance, as having caused increases in credit application processing times or rejection rates.The Australian Banking Association, he said, "recently disclosed information to ASIC that shows, on average, approvals for mortgage loans for ABA members in late 2018 took four days longer than they had in early 2018, but that by mid-2019 this had decreased to be just two days longer."Hughes again relied on ABA data to argue that three APRA measures best explained the drift in processing times; "satisfying new risk limits imposed on certain lending by APRA"; the inspection of record keeping; and "an APRA review leading to internal changes to processes and procedures".Each bank's culture may be shifting as well, Hughes suggested."Anecdotally, we have also heard of instances where front-line lending officers are seeking to escalate loan approval decisions to their managers, which may also have added to perceived delays."