Ms Derville Rowland:

When a contract is entered into between a lender and a customer, the terms remain certain. Any lender must stand in the shoes of those contract terms because we cannot have a unilateral variation of contract except by operation of some other kind of law that would interact. It is permitted in statutory law and other laws for the lender to sell the title to that loan and pass it on to another entity. The lender can swap shoes with another who would step into that contract but all of the terms and conditions of the contract would persist and pertain and the new loan owner would be bound by those. That happens with an interaction of statutory property law, contract law and, for example, securitisation and other areas of law. It is allowed for a loan to be sold and for a new loan owner to step into the shoes of that contract. Our role is to make sure the protections of regulation stay in place no matter who owns the loan so the consumer is fully protected. In terms of contract law, a consumer is entitled to rely upon the terms and conditions and protections inside the contract. There can be a lot of complicated particular parts of law that come into play in this, as well as the actual precise written terms of the contract. I hope that is somewhat helpful.