Credit Guide

Thank you for contacting us. We aim to exceed your expectations in our dealings with you, so if you have any questions after reading this guide, please contact us.

Corporate details

GHA Loans is a service provided by Central West Mortgage Brokers Pty Ltd (ABN 94 110 225 306) – Australian Credit License #390921 to clients of Green Homes Australia.

Central West Mortgage Brokers Pty Ltd is associated with Vision Finance & Property (ABN 50 867 155 934) group – Australian Credit License #389961.

About this Guide

Before we provide you with our services, you must read this Credit Guide. It contains important information that will help you decide whether to use our Services.

  • The credit services we provide
  • How we are paid
  • Our complaints process

Background to GHA Loans

Central West Mortgage Brokers Pty Ltd (CWMB) has operated in Orange, New South Wales, since 2003.  CWMB is an independent mortgage broking firm trading as Vision Finance and Property Central West. In 2017 Green Homes Australia and CWMB entered into an agreement for CWMB to assist Green Homes Australia clients to access mortgage broking services to assist them to meet their home loan and other finance needs.

Relationship between Green Homes Australia and GHA Loans

GHA Loans, operated by CWMB, is entirely separate to Green Homes Australia.  CWMB provides mortgage brokering service to clients of Green Homes Australia called GHA Loans.

Under the terms of the agreement between CWMB and Green Homes Australia, CWMB pays Green Homes Australia a fixed fee for each of its clients that it refers to GHA Loans that settle a home, construction or investment loan.

Our services

Credit advice process

All our clients are different, with different circumstances, requirements and objectives. We aim to treat you individually, but follow a defined process in helping you

  • We identify your needs – we listen to you to understand your needs and objectives.
  • Gather information – we obtain information from you and ask you for supporting information for verification purposes (more below)
  • Consider options suitable to you – we research the different loans available to you from our panel of lenders (with due consideration to their policies and servicing criteria)
  • Selecting a loan – we will help you choose a loan that suits your needs and objectives

Receive your finance

We will assist you through the loan submission process, liaising with the lender and any other relevant parties, to make sure your loan approval process runs smoothly

Suitability

We are required to make sure that the finance we assist you with meets two main criteria:

  • They meet your needs and objectives: and
  • You are able to meet the financial obligations of the loan without placing you in a position of financial hardship

Loans that meet these requirements are known as being ‘not unsuitable’. If we cannot meet these requirements, we are unable to provide you with credit assistance.

What we will need from you / verification

In assessing whether we can help you, we are required to take reasonable steps to verify some of the information you provide us. This verification may include:

  • asking you for copies of documents that demonstrate your financial situation – in some cases we may also need to sight original documents; and
  • contacting third parties to assist in verifying the information that you provide.

It is important that you provide us with as much information about your financial and relevant personal circumstances as possible. When you provide complete and accurate information we can provide you with assistance that is both timely and appropriate to your needs, objectives and financial situation.

You should read documentation, including the credit proposal, we provide you to ensure that the assistance provided is consistent with your personal circumstances.

Obtaining a copy of your Preliminary Assessment

You can request a copy of your Preliminary Assessment, and we will then provide it to you:

  • within seven (7) business days if your request is made at any time during the first two (2) years of completion of the assessment; or
  • within 21 business days if your request is made between two (2) years and seven (7) years after the assessment was conducted.

There is no charge for requesting or receiving a copy of your Preliminary Assessment. We are not required to give you a copy if we did not provide credit assistance to you.

How we are remunerated

We receive upfront and ongoing payments (known as ‘trail’ payment) by lenders when we introduce business to them.

The payments we receive are based on the size of your loan, the ongoing balance of your loan and the loan product you have selected.

As a guide, upfront payments tend to be in the range of 0.6% of the loan amount and trail payments tend to be in the range of 0.2%pa of your ongoing balance.

Before we assist you with an application for a particular lender’s product we will always provide you with a detailed estimate in dollar amounts of the payments we are likely to be paid by the lender.

When your loan is repaid, ongoing payments from the lender and amounts we agree to share with you in respect of that loan cease.

The amounts we receive are paid to us either directly by the lender, or via our Aggregator. They are not additional charges payable by you.

Some lenders may also pay us a bonus based on the volume of business that we and/or our Aggregator introduce to them (as part of a campaign). If you would like a detailed estimate of how much this would be for a particular lender for a particular product, we will provide this for you. We will also provide you with an explanation of how this commission is calculated.

Instances where we charge a fee

We do not charge you a fee for the service we provide as we believe that lenders pay us adequately for the long term service we provide.

In some circumstances we will pass a fee on to our clients. This is when we have received little or no compensation from lenders. Circumstances where we will charge a fee are:

  • We have arranged an approval for you but it does not proceed to settlement
  • A loan we arranged for you is paid out by you within a short period of time (eg, within 18 months) as this means lenders claw back payments they have previously made to us
  • You have asked us to perform a service that is outside the scope of regular mortgage broking activities, such as commercial finance or non-conforming loans.

These will be discussed with you and detailed in your Credit Proposal that we issue to you prior to submitting your loan to a lender.

What payments do we make or benefits do we receive?

Where you have been referred to us by someone else, we occasionally pay a referral fee. We will tell you about these if they apply in your situation and the fees will be specified in your Credit Proposal.

With your consent, we may refer you to providers of other products or services such as personal or general insurance. If you subsequently purchase a service or product we may receive a payment from the provider of that service or product and they will tell you how much this is.

Mortgage Advisers remuneration

Our Mortgage Advisers are employees and receive a salary from CWMB. They do not receive personal payments or commissions for the recommendation or sale of any particular products.

If they are eligible to receive a bonus, payment is based on the achievement of pre-determined business objectives, which focus primarily on business revenue, loan volumes and individual performance.

The lenders we deal with

We source credit products from a range of banks, lenders and other credit providers (over 20) including ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, ING, National Australia Bank, St George, Westpac and various credit unions.

We can also provide you with information from Market Forces on each lenders rating on investments in fossil fuels if requested to assist you by sourcing loan from lenders with a commitment to environmental sustainability (https://www.marketforces.org.au/info/compare-bank-table/).

Other people we deal with

Our Aggregators

In most cases, we gain access to the loan products we recommend to you through the services of an Aggregator. The Aggregators we use are:

  • Australian Mortgage Advisers Group Pty Limited (AMAG)
  • Beagle Finance Pty Limited (subsidiary of Resimac)

Privacy

CWMB complies with Vision Finance and Property’s Privacy Policy can be found at http://visionpf.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Vision-Privacy-Policy-March2015.pdf.

All information or data supplied to CWMB regarding your personal financial affairs will be held by CWMB in accordance with its privacy policy (refer http://visionpf.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Vision-Privacy-Policy-March2015.pdf).

When you contact GHA Loans about your financial needs, you are treated as a client on GHA Loans.  Under no circumstances will GHA Loans provide to Green Homes Australia any information or data on your personal financial affairs.

CWMB may provide general information about progress of the loan application or payments to Green Homes Australia to facilitate the client’s interests after obtaining permission from its client.

Information

Updating your Information

It is fundamental to our relationship that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. During the course of our relationship with you, we will ask you to inform us if any of your information has changed. You can update the information held by us at any time by contacting us.

Environmental Sustainability

CWMB is committed to environmental sustainability.  Our office incorporates the use of solar power, passive heating and cooling, and uses storm-water capture for all non-potable uses.  For each loan that we settle, CWMB will purchase a seedling to plant in a native vegetation regeneration area.

Complaints

We acknowledge the importance of providing exceptional customer service to you and all our clients. If you have a complaint, we encourage you to follow this process:

  1. Contact your Mortgage Adviser

Contact your Mortgage Adviser about your complaint and they will do all that they can to resolve your issue

  1. Contact our Complaints Manager

If you are not satisfied with the outcome with your Adviser, please contact our Complaints Manager on 02 8354 3000 or [email protected]. We will deal with your complaint within 14 days.

  1. Contact external resolution scheme

If CWMB still has not successfully resolved your complaint, we are a member of an external dispute resolution scheme.

Name Credit and Investments Ombudsman
Member # #405780 (Orange)
Phone 1 800 138 422
Web www.cio.org.au

Professional indemnity insurance

Professional indemnity insurance is maintained by CWMB to cover credit advice, actions and recommendations from by our Advisers. This satisfies the requirements imposed by the National Consumer Credit Protection Act (2009) and the regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

 

Your feedback

We welcome the opportunity to hear how we are going, and areas where we can improve.