Lending Association

Credit Guide

Licensee

Lending Association (“licensee”)

ABN: 91 149 564 250

Australian Credit Licence Number: 401226

Address: 2 Birmingham Street Alexandria NSW 2015

Tel: 02 8935 1111

Fax: 02 8935 1122

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.lendingassociation.com.au

Broker Group

Finance & Systems Technology Pty Ltd (“broker group”)

ACN: 092 660 912

This document provides you with information relating to our activities. 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 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.

What is credit assistance?

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.

Our assessment process

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.

Getting a copy of our assessment

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.

Information about us

We are authorised to engage in credit activities including providing credit assistance and acting as an intermediary.

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.

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

  • National Australia Bank – 23%
  • Bankwest – 23%
  • Macquarie– 20%
  • ANZ Bank – 15%
  • Suncorp – 5%
  • St George– 3%

The following is the full list of residential lenders available to us:

  • Adelaide Bank
  • AMP
  • ANZ Bank
  • Arthurmac
  • Athena Home Loans
  • Australian Unity
  • Auswide Bank
  • Bank First
  • Bankwest
  • Bank of Queensland
  • BC Invest
  • Bluestone
  • Bridgit
  • Brighton
  • Citibank
  • Commonwealth Bank of Australia
  • FAST Lend
  • First Mac
  • Granite Home Loans
  • Heritage Bank
  • ING
  • Judo Bank
  • LaTrobe Financial
  • Liberty Financial
  • MA Money
  • Medfin Finance
  • Macquarie Bank
  • ME Bank
  • Mystate Bank
  • National Australia Bank
  • ORDE Financial
  • Pepper Money
  • Resicom
  • Resimac
  • RedZed
  • St George
  • Suncorp
  • Think Tank
  • UBank
  • Victorian Mortgage Group
  • Virgin Money
  • Wave Money
  • Westpac

Our Broker Group

We obtain mortgage aggregation services from the Broker Group. The Broker Group provides services at arm’s-length to our business which include IT systems, loan information and lodgement systems, training and development, commission processing, conferences and professional development events, and assistance with regulatory and compliance obligations. In consideration of the services the Broker Group gives us, we pay fees to the Broker Group or the Broker Group retains some of the commission panel lenders pay on loans we arrange. We have access to Broker Group panel of lenders including Broker Group branded products.

FEES & CHARGES

Fees payable for the provision of credit assistance

We may charge a fee for providing credit assistance or associated with 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.

Fees payable in relation to acting as a credit representative

We may receive remuneration from the Broker Group or from a principal with whom we contract.

Other fees & charges

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.

COMMISSION

The Broker Group receives commissions from lenders and lessors and pays us commission in relation to loan contracts or leases for which we 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 0.55% and 0.77% 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 0.00% per annum and 0.35% 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 4.00 % 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.

Volume Bonus Arrangements

We and our Broker Group do not receive any volume based benefit for residential home loan products. However, from time to time we or the 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 the Broker Group write a particular volume of loans offered by lenders for products such as commercial and lease products.

Referral fees

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 may 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.

Referrals to an associated entity

We may refer you to the following associated entities and may receive a direct or indirect benefit from any referral we make to this provider. You can request further details about our associated entity arrangements prior to us providing you with credit advice.

We are committed to acting in your best interests when providing you with credit advice, as such we will be transparent and disclose any benefits we may receive via an associated entity in our recommendations to you.

Associated EntityNature of association
LA Insurance Pty Ltd ABN 16 610 540 577Lending Association & all associated entities are wholly owned by the same entity
Doctors Only Pty Ltd ABN 19 655 254 238 
Lending Association Pty Ltd ABN 91 149 564 250 
LA Private Pty Ltd ABN 19 663 204 377 
SMS Finance 2 Pty Ltd ABN 92 632 095 008 
AgFin Australia Pty Ltd ABN 31 662 573 015 

What if you are not happy with our services?

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. If your complaint is about your loan, in the first instance please contact your lender or credit assistance provider.
  • If your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction within 5 business days or if your loan is about the services we give you, you can contact us by the following means:

Contact:    Tom Pesce

Phone:      02 8935 1111

Fax:          02 8935 1122

Email:        [email protected]

Address:    2 Birmingham St Alexandria NSW 2015

Mail:          PO Box 7203 Alexandria NSW 2015

Third Party Products or Services

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.

Keeping you informed

We 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.

Taking it further

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:

Broker benefits disclosure

In line with industry reforms, we are 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.

Tiered servicing disclosures

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.