Credit Guide & Credit Quote

Credit Guide  - Effective Date: 6th December 2024

Important Disclosure – Please Read

This Credit Guide contains information about us as a credit assistance provider and how you can contact us, fees and charges payable to us for providing credit assistance, the name of the credit providers of the credit contracts in relation to which we provide credit assistance, any commissions that we, our directors, employees or credit representatives receive, or we pay to certain third parties.  Our responsible lending obligations and our dispute resolution process.

Responsible Lending Obligations

We must, as soon as reasonably practicable, when it becomes apparent to us that we are likely to provide credit assistance to you in relation to a credit contract, provide you a Credit Guide. 

The National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) requires that we must not provide credit assistance to you if the credit contract will be unsuitable for you. We provide credit assistance to you by:

• Suggesting that you apply, or assisting you to apply, for a particular credit contract with a particular credit provider; or

• Suggesting that you apply, or assisting you to apply, for an increase to the credit limit of a particular credit contract with a particular credit provider;

The credit contract will be unsuitable for you if, at the time we provide the credit assistance, it is likely that:

• You will be unable to comply with your financial obligations under the credit contract, or could only comply with substantial hardship; or

• The contract will not meet your requirements or objectives;

If the credit contract is entered in the period proposed for it to be entered, or the credit limit is increased in the period proposed for it to be increased.

Our responsible lending obligations require us to:

• Make reasonable inquiries about your financial situation and your requirements and objectives; and

• Take reasonable steps to verify your financial situation; and

• Make a preliminary assessment as to whether the credit contract will be unsuitable for you before providing credit assistance to you.

Copy of our Preliminary Assessment

When we provide you with credit assistance, you can ask us for a copy of our preliminary assessment (free of charge), any time up to 7 years after we provide you with a credit assistance quote.   We must 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.

We do not need to provide you with a copy of our preliminary assessment if:

• we do not provide any credit assistance to you; or

• your request is made more than 7 years after the date we provided you with a credit assistance quote.

Credit Providers

Subject to meeting credit criteria, we are able to assist you to obtain loans and leases from a broad range of lenders and lessors.  We do not require our credit representatives to recommend any particular lender and do not set any quotas or obligations on them relating to recommending any particular product.  The following are the lenders or lessors we generally conduct the most business with:

• Affordable Car Loans

• Allied Retail Finance Pty Ltd t/as The Asset Financer

• Azora

• Angle Finance

• CFI Finance

• Dynamoney

• Firstmac

• flexicommercial

• Liberty Financial

• Maple Asset Finance

• Metro CF Pty Ltd

• Money 3 Loans Pty Ltd (t/as Money3 Loans) 

• Moneyplace

• Morris Finance

• Pepper Money

• Pepper Asset Finance

• Resimac

• Shift Financial Pty Ltd

• Westpac

• Wisr

Disputes or Complaints

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.

How to make a complaint and the complaints process

If you have a complaint, please contact Simplify’s Complaints Officer as detailed below:

Telephone: 1300 219 188

Email: complaints@simplify.com.au

Mail: U301/148 Logis Boulevard Dandenong South Vic 3175

• We may ask for additional information and request you to put your complaint in writing to ensure your issue is properly investigated.  

• In cases where your complaint will take longer to resolve, we will update you progressively.

Third party products or services

If your complaint relates to a product or service acquired through a third party (for example, a credit provider) we may ask you to contact the relevant third party. We 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 our 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, we 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.

Still not satisfied?

If you do not think we have resolved your complaint to your satisfaction, you can lodge a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). AFCA provides fair and independent financial services complaint resolution that is free to consumers.

• Website: www.afca.org.au

• Email: info@afca.org.au

• Telephone: 1800 931 678 (free call)

• In writing to:

Australian Financial Complaints Authority, 

GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001

• Reference AFCA member number: 80311

Fees, Charges and Commission

Information about our fees, charges and commission

You may obtain information about how fees and charges payable by you mentioned in this Credit Guide & Quote are worked out and a reasonable estimate of the commission likely to be received, directly or indirectly, by us and how the commission is worked out. If you wish to obtain this information, please contact us, using the details listed in the beginning of this Credit Guide & Quote.

Fees payable for the provision of credit assistance

Fees and charges that may be payable by you for our credit assistance and for matters associated with providing the credit assistance:

Origination fee:

• Being for preparation and generation of all required documents by Simplify to support the application for credit.

• Calculated as a fixed dollar amount for document preparation services provided.

• This fee is payable once only upon settlement of the finance application.

• This fee is not payable in the event that the application for finance does not proceed.

Establishment fee:

• Being for professional services rendered by Simplify in performing credit activities associated with this application for finance.

• Calculated as a fixed dollar amount for professional services provided.

• This fee is payable once only upon settlement of the finance application.

• This fee is not payable in the event that the application for finance does not proceed. 

Other fees and charges

You may have to pay other fees and charges (such as establishment fees, 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.

Commissions

Commission is paid to us by the above named credit providers for which we act as a credit representative 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.

Further details of the commission earned 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 Arrangement

Simplify has individual volume bonus arrangements in place with many of the aforementioned credit providers. We may receive additional commission depending on the total volume of business that we arrange with each credit provider.

Such commission is paid by the credit providers to Simplify under the volume bonus arrangements.

Commission is likely to be paid by us to a third party for introduction of credit business or business proposed to be financed by the credit contract

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, or when we provide you with credit assistance.

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.

Credit Quote 

This quote provides information about the fees you agree to pay for our assistance in sourcing finance for you.

Services to be provided

We will do our best to source the finance you require.

Maximum fee or charges for providing credit assistance and other services

If we successfully obtain the finance you require, we will charge you a fee for our services when the finance is settled.  This service fee is the only fee we charge you and may be included in the finance amount or it can be paid directly to Simplify.

As we offer a range of lenders, the maximum fee we may charge you is dependent on the specific lender that provides your finance.  However the purpose of this document is to guarantee that the maximum fee we will charge for our services is $2,500 (including GST).  The exact amount you need to pay will be fully disclosed on your loan contract before you sign and accept the loan offer.

There are no other fees or charges payable to us, however you may be required to pay fees to the financier.

This Quote is only valid for 30 days from the date of issue.  Simplify reserves the right to re-issue this Quote where the Quote is not accepted within 30 days from the date of issue.