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SUPPORT

We all may experience financial hardship at some time.

How we support you

What is financial assistance?

This may be related to illness, unemployment or reduced income, a pandemic, natural disaster or relationship breakdown. Experiencing financial hardship is more common than you think, but getting support is important – and we’re here to help.

Financial hardship is when you’re willing but unable to pay what you owe because of unexpected events or unforeseen changes that impact cashflow. For example:

  • Coronavirus
  • Unemployment
  • Serious illness or injury
  • The loss of a loved one
  • Family and domestic violence
  • Natural disasters (e.g. floods, bushfires)
  • Business downturns

If you’re experiencing any of these events, or other reasons for financial hardship, you’ll be expected to reasonably recover your financial position once appropriate arrangements are made.

We're here to help

COVID-19 Support

As COVID-19 continues to spread across many parts of Australia, we understand the impacts this may have on our customers.

If you are affected and need to seek financial relief, please refer to the below for contact details.

Retro & Link Customers

Guidance for customers with changing circumstances

If you are under pressure as a result of the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis or simply want to know what options you may have should you be, please contact us to discuss your situation. There are a number of options that may be available depending on your personal circumstances including:

  1. Accessing surplus funds in your offset account or your available redraw amount.
  2. Reducing payments to the minimum monthly requirement.
  3. Temporarily converting to interest only repayments.
  4. An individual review of your circumstances.

Due to a large increase in customer enquiries we are experiencing some delays with our phone service. Therefore, we recommend submitting an online request for hardship assistance.

If you prefer to speak to someone, you can call our Client Services team on 1800 629 948 or email at clientservices@afghomeloans.com.au. We will respond and return all calls as quickly as possible and assure you we will address all enquiries. We apologise in advance for the delays and ask for your patience and understanding.

Alpha Customers

Guidance for customers with changing circumstances

Whilst we all work through this ever changing environment, we understand the impact of COVID-19 could affect our customers financially. We’re offering a financial difficulty assistance package to assist eligible customers:

  • Home Loan relief for up to six months
  • Waiver of fees for the restructuring or consolidation of loans

We are working to develop a simple process for customers to access this support and removing hurdles where possible but in the meantime affected customers can contact our Mortgage Help Centre on 1300 650 259 regarding financial hardship and applying for assistance.

We appreciate these are extremely difficult and uncertain times but we’d like to ask that only where there is genuine financial hardship that you contact the Mortgage Help Centre. This will be important in ensuring access to the assistance package for those most in need.

Given the likelihood of high call volumes we also ask for patience. If you experience delays and leave a message someone will respond as soon as possible. We anticipate that this could be up to 2 business days.

Edge Customers

Guidance for customers with changing circumstances

At Edge, we know this is an extremely difficult time for many of our customers and we want you to know that we’re here to help.

Find out more on how we can support you with your home loan.

Options Customers

Guidance for customers with changing circumstances

If you’re affected please contact us on 1800 356 383, between 8:00am and 5:30pm, Monday to Friday (AEDT) to discuss your financial relief options.

Please Note: Due to the high volume of calls to our customer service centre, you may experience a longer wait time than usual.  We appreciate your patience during this busy time, and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Most people find it embarrassing to admit to their lender (or even themselves) that they are in financial hardship, but it is important to remember that the sooner you talk to us, the sooner our hardship team can work with you on a plan to help improve your situation.

What is financial hardship?
You may be in financial hardship if you are having difficulty meeting your financial obligations (like paying bills or repayments on your loan or credit card). This can occur for a variety of reasons, including:

  • unemployment or a reduction of income;
  • injury or illness;
  • natural disasters such as bushfires, floods and cyclones;
  • a death in the family or other significant life event or
  • an increase in other bills or expenditures.

Options’ approach to hardship
Options is committed to helping customers who are experiencing hardship wherever possible. We encourage customers to talk to us directly to discuss available options. We’ll also proactively contact our customers who may be experiencing financial difficulty.

During our discussions with you we will assess your request based on the reason for your hardship and ask you questions designed to assist us with our assessment. These may include:

  • What the reason is for your notice of hardship?
  • Your potential to make any loan repayments, and if so when will you commence these?
  • Whether the situation will be long or short term?

We offer a number of payment options which are specifically designed to cater for a customer’s changing circumstances. These may include:

  • Repayment holidays
  • Postponement of payments
  • Loan variations etc
  • Redraw of funds

Our hardship team will work with you to offer a solution that is most suitable for your circumstances based on information you provide us.

How do I apply for hardship assistance?
You can reach our Hardship Assist Team, Mondays to Fridays, 8:30am – 5:30pm AEST.
Australia: 1800 356 383 | New Zealand: 0800 466 108

Download and complete a Statement Financial Position form and send this to us or if you wish to nominate someone to speak on your behalf, please complete the Third Party Authorisation form and send this to us via one of the following methods:

Email: assist@pepper.com.au
Post: PO Box 244 Parramatta CBD NSW 2124
Fax: 1300 597 864

Your request will be treated in the strictest confidence as we work together to find a solution.

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