Credit Guide 

This document provides you with information relating to our activities and various fees and charges that may be payable by you to us, as well as about certain commissions we may receive from a licensee, 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.

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.

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.

The following are the lenders or lessors with whom we generally conduct the most business:

·       Adelaide Bank, Bank SA, Commonwealth Bank, Homeside ( NAB), FastLend, Westpac, Loan Avenue ING ….

FEES AND CHARGES

We 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.

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.

Our licensee 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 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 and Personal Loans

Upfront commission payable by lenders in relation to loans is calculated as a percentage of the loan amount and is generally in the range of 04% and 0.7% of the loan amount.  It is usually paid after settlement of the loan.

Trail commission payable by lenders in relation to 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 0.15% per annum and 0.25% 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 [insert lowest in range]% and [insert highest in range]% 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.

Our broker group has volume bonus arrangements in place with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the Westpac Banking Corporation and the Australia and New Zealand Bank Group Limited.  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 those lenders.

We are not likely to pay a commission to any third party for the introduction of credit business or business financed by the loan contract or lease. If a third party has introduced you to us or referred you to us, we may pay them a commission or a fee. 

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.     E Mail info@hallmortgage.com.au or phone 0419 857 517.

If your complaint relates to a product or service acquired through a third party (for example, a lender) we may ask you to contract 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.

 TIMELINESS

We will provide a written acknowledgement of receipt of your complaint within 2 business days, unless the complaint is otherwise resolved in the meantime.

We will ensure that a substantive response is given to your complaint as soon as possible, but within forty five (45) days of receipt of your complaint.

If we cannot respond to your complaint within forty five (45) days, we will inform you of the reasons for the delay and of your right to refer the complaint to the Credit Ombudsman Service.

We will have substantially responded to your complaint if we:

(a) Accept the complaint and, if appropriate, offer redress, or

(b) Offer redress without accepting the complaint; or

(c) Reject the complaint.

WRITTEN RESPONSE TO A CUSTOMER

We will give you a written response to your complaint and the reasons for reaching a particular decision on the complaint and will adequately address the issues that are raised in your complaint.

Where practicable, our response will refer to applicable provisions in legislation, Codes, Standards or Procedures.

REMEDIES

If we accept your complaint and are of the view that it is appropriate to offer redress to you, that redress may be non-financial as well as, or instead of, financial. If we consider that a financial remedy is appropriate then we will provide compensation for any direct loss or damage caused.

We will, when determining the appropriate remedy, take into consideration the extent of loss or damage suffered by you, relevant legal principles, the MFM~ Code of Practice and other relevant codes of conduct and concepts of fairness and relevant industry best practice.

DATA COLLECTION

We will keep data concerning your complaint in such font and manner as we think fit and will enable analysis according to:

(a)              Type of complaint;

(b)              Subject of complaint;

(c)              Outcome of complaint;

(d)              Timeliness of response.

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 Credit Ombudsman Service Limited, which can be contacted via:

·       Telephone:  1800 138 422

·       Online complaint form: http://www.cosl.com.au/Make-a-complaint-intro

·       Website:  http://www.cosl.com.au

·       Mail:  PO Box A252, Sydney South NSW 1235

·       Fax:  02 9273 8440

Our external dispute resolution service provider is the Financial Ombudsman Service Limited which can contacted via:

·       Telephone:  1300 780 808

·       Online complaint form: https://forms.fos.org.au/OnlineDispute

·       Website:  http://www.fos.org.au

·       Mail: GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001

·       Fax:  03 9613 6399