Credit Guide

This document provides you with information relating to our activities and those of our credit representatives. It contains information about various fees and charges that may be payable by you to us, as well as about certain commissions we may receive from a licensee when we are acting as a credit representative, or we pay to certain third parties. It also contains information about what you should do if you have a complaint or dispute in connection with our services as a credit representative.

A ‘credit representative’ is a person who has been authorised by a credit licensee to engage in specified credit activities on behalf of the licensee. Our licensee is BLSSA.

BLSSA is a member of the National Australia Bank Group of companies (National Australia Bank Group).

We give you credit assistance when:

§  we assist you to apply for a particular loan or lease;

§  we suggest you apply for a particular loan or lease (or suggest you apply for an increase to an existing loan); or

§  we suggest you remain in your current loan or lease.

Before we provide credit assistance to you, we assess whether the particular loan or lease is suitable for you. To do this, we need to make reasonable inquiries and verify that:

§  the loan or lease or increase will meet your requirements and objectives; and

§  you can meet the proposed repayments.

We won’t be able to give you credit assistance if our assessment shows that:  

• you won’t be able to meet the proposed repayments without substantial hardship; or    
• the loan or lease won’t meet your requirements or objectives.

If we provide you with credit assistance, you can ask us for a copy of our assessment any time up to 7 years after we provide you with a credit assistance quote. To request a copy please contact us. We will provide you with a copy: 

• within 7 business days after the day we receive your request – provided you make the request within 2 years of the date of our credit assistance quote; or
• otherwise, within 21 business days after the day we receive your request.

We act as a credit representative for BLSSA. We are authorised to engage in credit activities including providing credit assistance on its behalf.

Subject to meeting credit criteria, we are able to assist you to obtain loans and leases for you from a broad range of lenders and lessors through our Broker Group.  Our Broker Group does not require us to recommend any particular lender and our Broker Group does not set any quotas or obligations on us relating to recommending any particular lender. 

The Broker Group’s panel of lenders includes a number of lenders and loan distributors that are part of the National Australia Bank Group.  These include National Australia Bank Ltd and ChoiceLend Pty Ltd. 

The following are the Top 6 residential lenders and % of business written in the previous financial year:

·         Heritage Bank - 41%

·         Commonwealth Bank - 30%

·         Westpac – 29%

·         Suncorp – 0%

·         ING – 0%

·         Macquarie – 0%

The following is a list of all the lenders with which I have accreditation:

We may charge a fee for providing credit assistance. More detail about those fees will be set out in a quote we will give to you before we provide you with credit assistance.

We may receive remuneration from our employer, BLSSA and/or Broker Group and do not charge you any fees or charges in relation to acting as a credit representative. 

You may have to pay other fees and charges (such as an application fees, valuation fees and other fees) to the lender, lessor or other parties. You should review the disclosure documents and your loan contract or lease for further details of any such fees and charges.

BLSSA has appointed our Broker Group as its agent to receive commissions from lenders and lessors and to pay us commission in relation to loan contracts or leases for which we act as a credit representative and provide credit assistance. The total amount of commission we may receive in relation to your loan or lease may vary depending on the lender or lessor, the term, the features, the amount of the loan or lease you ultimately choose and the amount and timing of the repayments that you make.

Loan Contracts such as Home Loans, Investment Property Loans

Upfront commission payable by lenders in relation to home loans and investment property loans is calculated as a percentage of the loan amount and is generally in the range of 0% and 1.1% of the loan amount. It is usually paid after settlement of the loan.

Trail commission payable by lenders in relation to home loans and investment property loans is generally calculated regularly (monthly, quarterly, bi-monthly or annually) on the outstanding loan balance and is paid in arrears. The trail commission payable by lenders is generally in the range of 0% per annum and .385% per annum of the outstanding loan amount.

Personal Loans

Upfront commission payable by lenders in relation to personal loans is calculated as a percentage of the loan amount and is generally in the range of 0% and 4% of the loan amount. It is usually paid after settlement of the loan.

Trail commission payable by lenders in relation to personal loans is generally calculated regularly (monthly, quarterly, bi-monthly or annually) on the outstanding loan balance and is paid in arrears. The trail commission payable by lenders is generally in the range of 0% per annum and 0% per annum of the outstanding loan amount.

Leases

Upfront commission payable by lessors in relation to leases is calculated as a percentage of the lease amount and is generally in the range of 0% and 4.4% of the lease amount. It is usually paid after settlement of the lease.

 Trail commission is generally not payable in relation to leases.

Further details of the commission earned by us will be included in the credit proposal disclosure document we will provide to you at the same time as we provide you with credit assistance.

You can request information from us about the fees that we are likely to receive, how those fees are calculated, and our reasonable estimate of the fees or commissions that will be payable.

We and our Broker Group do not receive any volume based benefit for residential home loan products. However, from time to time we or our Broker Group may receive a benefit, directly by way of cash bonus or additional commissions or indirectly by way of training, professional development days or sponsorship, if we or our Broker Group write a particular volume of loans offered by lenders for products such as commercial and lease products.

If a third party has introduced you to us or referred you to us, we may pay them a commission or a fee.  More detail about those payments will be set out in the credit proposal disclosure document we will give to you before we provide you with credit assistance. 

We obtain referrals from a range of sources, including real estate agents, accountants, financial planners or other people.

Further information about referral commissions, including our reasonable estimate of the amount of any commission payable and how it is calculated is available from us on request and will be included in the credit proposal disclosure we will supply to you when we provide you with our credit assistance.

We are committed to providing our customers with the best possible service. If at any time we have not met our obligations – or you have a complaint about any of our services – please inform us so we can work towards a resolution. We will endeavour to deal with your complaint promptly, thoroughly and fairly.

If you have a complaint, we request you follow these steps:

1.     In the first instance, please contact your credit assistance provider.

2.     If your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within 5 business days, please contact our Complaints Area as detailed below:

Telephone: 03 8616 1443 Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm (AEST)

Email: resolutions@BLSSA.com.au

Fax: 03 8616 1918

Mail: BLSSA Advice Complaints, PO Box 626, Collins Street West, Melbourne VIC 3000

3.     We may ask for additional information and request you to put your complaint in writing to ensure your issue is properly investigated.

4.     In cases where your complaint will take longer to resolve, we will update you progressively.

If your complaint relates to a product or service acquired through a third party (for example, a lender) we may ask you to contact the relevant third party. They will deal with your complaint under their complaints resolution process.

If you are not satisfied with the resolution of your complaint by the third party under their complaints resolution process, you are entitled to have your dispute considered by their External Dispute Resolution Scheme.  Please contact the third party for further details.

Our Complaints Area will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within five business days. If unable to resolve the complaint/dispute to your satisfaction within five business days, they will write to you advising the procedures we will follow in investigating and handling your complaint.

Within 45 calendar days from the date you lodged the complaint with us, we will write to you advising you the outcome of the investigation and the reason/s for our decision, or if required, we will inform you if more time is needed to complete the investigation.

If you do not think we have resolved your complaint to your satisfaction, you may take the matter – free of charge – to the relevant External Disputes Resolution Scheme (provided it is within the scheme’s terms of reference) as detailed below. You may also refer the matter to the relevant External Disputes Resolution Scheme at any time, but if our internal process is still in progress, they may request that our internal processes be complete before considering the matter further.

Our external dispute resolution service provider is the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), which can be contacted via:

·         Online: www.afca.org.au

·         Email: info@afca.org.au

·         Phone: 1800 931 678

·         Mail: GPO Box 3 Melbourne VIC 3001

BLSSA’s external dispute resolution service provider is the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), which can be contacted via:

·         Online: www.afca.org.au

·         Email: info@afca.org.au

·         Phone: 1800 931 678

·         Mail: GPO Box 3 Melbourne VIC 3001

In line with industry reforms, I am required to keep a register of benefits received from any lenders or aggregators to the value of $100 or more which is kept current (over a rolling 12 month period and housed for 3 years). In the interest of transparency and good customer outcomes, an applicant may request a copy of this register to ensure there are no lender conflicts.

We have access to service programs available from some residential home loan providers. We access these services based on a number of measures. These programs promote preferential services to a customer and do not entitle us to additional payments or commissions or to preferential customer discounts.