52Moreover, given the importance, noted in paragraph 43 of the present judgment, of the objective of consumer protection inherent in the creditor’s obligation to assess the borrower’s creditworthiness, the penalty of forfeiture of entitlement to contractual interest cannot be regarded, more generally, as being genuinely deterrent if the referring court were to find, at the conclusion of the comparison referred to in paragraph 50 of the present judgment and in the light of all the relevant circumstances there referred to, that — in a case such as that which has been brought before it, in which the outstanding amount of the principal of the loan is immediately payable as a result of the borrower’s default — the amounts which the creditor is likely to receive following the application of that penalty are not significantly less than those which that creditor could have received had it complied with that obligation.
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