A survey by the Finance Sector Union has found nearly 60 per cent of bank workers felt pressured to offer loans to people who cannot afford the repayments.

 

But Australian Bankers Association chief executive David Bell says banks only give loans to people who can afford them.

 

"Unfortunately there are other lenders out there, the bottom feeders, who lend to people not really caring if they can repay that money," he said.

 

"All they care about is whether they can get their fee on the way through and whether they can get their money back."

 

Mr Bell says he would like to see how the survey questions were framed.

 

"We haven't seen the details of the survey," he said.

 

"I guess the thing that we most focus on is the level of good lending in the banking sector, and recent data from Standard and Poor's shows that for banks people who are behind on their repayments, the figure remains very low - in fact it's about 0.75 per cent."