We are committed to responsible lending, helping you with your obligations and protecting our customers.
As we enter FY20, we will strive to improve our processes and service to support you to deliver better customer outcomes and strengthen your position as a professional Mortgage Broker.
A part of this is to ensure our procedures are geared to meet our obligations under responsible lending, and in turn, help you meet yours. One of these obligations is the need to ensure that loans are not “unsuitable” for our customers.
MyState is a signatory to the Australian Banking Association Code of Banking Practice. The Code requires MyState to exercise the care and skill of a diligent and prudent banker when providing loans to customers.
The suitability of the loan may be influenced if a borrower is subject to financial abuse or is coerced. As Brokers play a key role in managing MyState customer relationships, it is important that we provide you guidance to identify if a customer is potentially subject to financial abuse, or under undue influence when applying for, or varying a loan.
Here are some indicators to be aware of when interacting with customers:
- They appear to be coerced into applying for a loan by a family member, friend or other person,
- They remains silent/quiet while another party does all the talking,
- They appear withdrawn and fearful (particularly of the person accompanying them),
- They give implausible explanations or are confused about what they are doing with their money,
- They express concern about missing funds, or personal or financial documents,
- They advise you they are going through a separation with the joint applicant, and don’t understand their risk or responsibilities,
- They are unaware of the other applicant’s debt level and seems nervous and appear shocked when this is identified during a loan application,
- They speak no or limited English, are being asked to be a Co-Borrower on a loan and don’t understand their risk or responsibilities,
- They becomes agitated when you advise that you must speak to all borrowers/account holders,
- They receive no benefit by being on the loan and are unaware of the risks involved,
- They are confused during the application process or do not understand what they are being asked to do,
- Their language/body language changes when not in the company of the Co-Borrower,
- They have no access to their banking, or their money is controlled by a third party, and
- They contact you to discuss risks and their responsibilities of a loan after loan documents have been signed and advise that they were coerced into applying for the loan.
You will pick up some of these signals in your discussions with the customer. If you are concerned that a MyState customer may be subject to financial abuse or undue influence, please raise the matter with your MyState Business Development Manager as soon as possible.
Identifying and then providing remedy to situations where a customer may be subject to undue influence or financial abuse will provide them with the best outcomes. It will also safeguard other parties involved - the lender and broker - by adhering to the responsible lending guidelines.
