The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has removed the investor loan growth benchmark - colloquially, the macro-pru speed limit - and replaced it with more permanent self-assessed measures to strengthen lending standards."The 10 per cent benchmark on investor loan growth was a temporary measure, introduced in 2014 as part of a range of actions to reduce higher risk lending and improve practices," APRA said in a note yesterday."In recent years, authorised deposit-taking institutions have taken steps to improve the quality of lending, raise standards and increase capital resilience."As part of these measures, APRA expects ADIs to develop internal portfolio limits on the proportion of new lending at very high debt-to-income levels, and policy limits on maximum debt-to-income levels for individual borrowers. "APRA has written to ADIs today to advise that it is now prepared to remove the investor growth benchmark, where the board of an ADI is able to provide assurance on the strength of their lending standards."For the 10 per cent benchmark to no longer apply, an ADI's Board will be expected to confirm that their particular entity's lending has been below the investor loan growth benchmark for at least the past 6 months, and the following also applies: lending policies meet APRA's guidance on serviceability; lending practices will be strengthened where necessary.APRA Chairman Wayne Byres said that while this change in approach was due to improvements that ADIs have made to lending standards, there is more to do to strengthen the assessment of borrower expenses and existing debt commitments, and the oversight of lending, outside of policy. "The benchmark on interest-only lending will also continue to apply," Byres said.For ADIs that do not provide the required commitments to APRA, the investor loan growth benchmark will continue to apply.