Bank of Mum and Dad to be Investigated
Bank of Mum and Dad to be Investigated
In response to runaway house prices and widespread reports of ‘loan-sharking’ interest rates, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has announced an investigation into the Bank of Mum and Dad.
‘This is some of the worst financial abuse we’ve ever seen, even from Boomers’, said Paul Lopez, advocate at the Centre for Survivors of Boomer Abuse. ‘Obviously we’re used to Boomers rorting the system by changing the rules for super contributions, university fees, capital gains and so on, but this is different.’
The practice of Boomer parents lending to their children to help them purchase their first home has grown exponentially, with 60 per cent of first-home buyers now getting an average leg-up of nearly $100 000.1 Such loans are unregulated lending and often come with intolerable moral costs ranging from unwanted advice to demands to respond to their parents’ Facebook comments instantly.
Carol Johnstone, Professor of Psychology at Barton University and author of a recent paper in the Journal of Boomer Studies, says that Boomer greed is taking the form of higher and higher rates of emotional interest. ‘Where Boomers might have expected a planned family breakfast or dinner once a week, now they are popping over unannounced.’
One anonymous millennial claims that while they would never have been able to save for a house from their jobs driving Uber and working at JB Hi-Fi, they are not sure that taking a loan from the Bank of Mum and Dad was the right decision. ‘Now I feel like I can’t disagree when Dad says that computers have become slower, or that wind burn is real, and he keeps texting me every morning asking what I thought about what the lunatics on Sky News said.’
APRA’s investigation was opened by James Senza Casa, one of APRA’s rising stars who last year underlined the danger of what he calls ‘future theft by accidentally-on-purpose policy’. However, the regulator’s chair, Wayne Byres, is a proud Boomer, and looks unlikely to take decisive action.
Byres is on record before Parliament with the unapologetic claim that ‘this generation deserves to enjoy its time in the sun. If that time is longer than the generations before us then it’s because we have looked after ourselves with sensible lifestyles’.
Those hoping for generational change inside the regulator of the type that Senza Casa augurs shouldn’t hold their breath. One insider claims that ‘Byres gets adrenochrome injections each week and bangs out a 5km run every lunch hour. We’ll have a stable climate before we have generational change.’
Citations:
1 https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/huge-rise-in-bank-of-mum-and-dad-loans-20210506-p57peh
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