Licence & Disclosure

This information will help you understand the nature and scope of our advice and services.  It will provide you with useful information about what we do and how we can help you within our scope of advice and services.  This information will help you to decide if our services and scope of advice best suits your needs.

Licencing Information

Simplify is a registered Financial Service Provider (FSP455126) and holds a class 3, full financial advice provider licence issued by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), date of authorisation 15th March 2023.

Licenced Financial Service Provider Details:

Who are Simplify?

We provide you a better way to compare finance options across various lenders.  We set out to make your experience faster, easier, and seamless. With loan comparisons, personalised matches, expert guidance, and advanced technology, we ensure you get the best options with less complexity.

What type of advice do we provide?

Our team of Nominated Representatives (our employees) are known as Finance Consultants.  

The type advice they provide is limited to the area in which we specialise only.

We will provide you with recommendations as well as transactional services as part of facilitating secured and unsecured loans for motor vehicles, boats, caravans, motor homes, personal loans, debt consolidation, loan top-ups, refinancing, restructuring, varying of existing loan arrangements and business finance.  We will also provide recommendations in relation to the associate insurance protection products. These general insurance products include comprehensive car insurance, loan payment protection insurance, guaranteed asset protection and mechanical breakdown insurance.

What is the nature and scope of our advice and services?

Subject to meeting credit criteria, we will assist you to obtain loans from a broad range of lenders, detailed in this document under “Our Lenders”.   When comparing your finance options, we will consider the loan products and terms available through all of the lenders that you qualify for.  We are not, and do not set any quotas or obligations to recommend any particular product or lender, recommending the best option to suit your requirements and objectives, to ensure you receive a great outcome.

Based on our discussions and the information you provide to us we will provide you with information about:

• whether or not you may qualify for a loan with one of our product providers;

• the best loan option(s) available with our panel of lenders that you may qualify for.  This will allow you to compare solutions effectively, including but not limited to loan features like the interest rate, associated fees and loan terms. Depending on what you want to achieve and your individual situation, you might qualify for just one or multiple loan options to choose from.

• options in utilising unencumbered assets to secure a loan for capital raising and debt consolidation, to enable you to compare against secured and unsecured loan terms available in deciding what is right for you;

• top-ups to existing loans; and

• restructuring and refinancing of existing loans, providing you with transparency of the costs involved so you can choose whether or not to proceed.

We will ask you what the purpose of the loan is.  Your objective to obtain the loan may be something like:

• Consolidating debt.

• Purchasing an asset of a specific value or quality, like a car or a boat for example.

• Purchasing an asset of a specific value or quality and covering additional costs, such as associated insurance protection options or vehicle accessories.

• Have access to funds for a specific purpose, such as a holiday, wedding, renovations, white goods etc.

• Refinance a current loan (telling us what is the concise reason to refinance) for example this might entail extending the term to reduce payments, obtain a lower rate.  

Something Else?  Let us know what you want to achieve.

We will also need to know your loan requirements.  These are things that relate to particular features of a loan that you need or what may not be necessary, and what your priority is for these features.  For example these may be things like:

• A specific loan term.

• Amount you want to finance.

• Rate specifics.

• Achieve a target repayment.

• Have the ability to pay out the loan early with minimal penalties or fees.

• A loan with no or low account keeping fees.

• A loan without security.

Something Else?  Let us know what you are looking for.

In addition to the loan purpose and features you want, we will also ask you a few questions to help us find out what loan options you may be eligible for. This will be things like (but not limited to):

• your date of birth;

• your drivers licence type;

• your employment details;

• your credit status.

Our lenders provide us with baseline criteria that you need to meet in order to obtain a loan and due to our relationships with our lending partners we have access to have open discussions with them on your behalf, saving you the trouble and time.

We will also provide you with a range of insurance options that may help protect your asset and/or your loan.  These general insurance products include comprehensive car insurance, loan payment protection insurance, guaranteed asset protection and mechanical breakdown insurance.

We will not provide you with every cover type available to you from the range of insurance products.  This will be limited to the most reasonable cover types or the best match, that you, your loan or your asset may qualify for, whilst working within your budget requirements.  There may be less expensive products available with cover limitations, more expensive options with a higher level of cover, varying excess options to reduce your costs and different terms (the length) of cover available.  We will provide you with the reasons why we have selected the cover options for you, so you can decide whether this will meet your needs or whether you need to consider alternative cover types.  Product disclosure documents are available to you to review to ensure you select the right type of cover to meet your needs and the limitations of those products.

It is important to note when reviewing your insurance protection options that we do not take into account any existing insurance policies that you may hold and whether you already have adequate cover in place.  We will provide you with information relating purely to your loan or the asset you are financing in isolation, to enable you to decide whether you wish to obtain the cover offered or,  whether you already have cover available to you through existing insurances you may hold.

We act as an agent of Autosure, except where you wish to finance your insurance and your loan is with Alphera Financial Services.  This lender will only finance insurance products offered through Provident Insurance, to whom we also act as an agent.

As an intermediary, at Simplify we will do some of the things which our lenders and insurers would otherwise do, if they were providing the finance or insurance directly to you.  These things are:

• providing you with factual information about the lender or insurer’s products,

• make preliminary inquiries about your requirements and objectives,

• collect some of the information the lender or insurer needs; and

• submit applications to the lender/insurer on your behalf.

If an application is accepted by the lender or insurer, this will also include:

• explaining to you and ensuring you understand the key features of the finance or credit related insurance, this includes primary borrowers, co-borrowers and guarantors (all parties to any application or agreement);

• providing you with copies of the loan agreement, insurance terms and all related documents in soft copy, (and on occasion hard copy), “initial disclosure”; and; 

• arranging for the loan agreement and any other documents the lender or insurer needs signed to be returned to the lender for settlement and funds disbursement.

We never give you or anyone else the impression that;

• we are able to make promises or take action on the lender or insurers behalf, or in particular, that we are able to provide financial advice, or to hold or handle money, on the lenders or insurers behalf;

• we have any control over whether or not the lender or insurer will accept your application.

All finance approvals are subject to lender credit criteria and responsible lending requirements. 

Quotations, Estimates or Calculations provided prior to formal lender approval should be deemed as a guide only.

Our Lenders

The following are the lenders we conduct business with and we will compare your options through:

• Heartland Bank

• Branded Financial Services

• Auto Finance Direct

• Avanti Financial Services

• Finance Now

• Geneva Finance

• Community Financial Services

• Oxford Finance

• Alphera Financial Services

• Financial Holdings Limited

• CFI Finance

Maximum fee or charges for providing advice 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 fee is commonly referred to as an origination, introducer or broker fee. This is the only fee we charge you and may be included in the finance amount or it can be paid directly to Simplify.

The fee charged relates to the provision of our specialised services in assisting you in obtaining the right solutions to meet your objectives and requirements, in obtaining asset finance and insurance. If you do not enter into the credit contract you will not be charged.

As we offer a range of lenders, the maximum fee we may charge you is dependent on the specific lender that provides your finance and the level of advice and service we provide.  This may be between $0 to $2,500.  However the purpose of this document is to guarantee that the maximum fee we will charge for our services is $2,500.  The exact amount you need to pay will be fully disclosed to you when we provide you with our recommendations.

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

Simplify is responsible for administering insurance policies on behalf of Autosure.

An administration fee of $ 75 is charged by Simplify, to cover expenses related to the additional administrative costs of changing or cancelling an insurance policy outside of the cooling off period. This fee will be deducted from the pro rata reimbursement, where the policy is eligible for one.

Commissions, Referral fees and incentives

Commission is paid to Simplify by the above named lenders for which we act as a credit representative and provide you with credit assistance. The total amount of commission we may receive in relation to your loan may vary depending on the lender, the term, the features, the amount of the loan you ultimately choose and the amount and timing of the repayments that you make.  These commissions are paid to Simplify in the month following settlement of your loan.  Where you loan is paid out earlier than the full term of the loan, we may be subject to a clawback of these commissions on a pro rata basis.

We receive referrals from a broad range of sources and we may pay fees to these sources (e.g. existing Simplify customers, motor dealers, real estate agents, mortgage brokers or accountants) for referring you to us. You do not pay these fees. Total fees paid by us for this finance proposal are estimated to be a percentage split of any commissions we receive between 0% to 50%, or a fixed amount agreed with the referrer.

As a customer of Simplify, when you refer a friend or family member who successfully obtains finance with us, we will pay you a referral fee of $ 250 per finance contract settled.

Conflicts of interest

We give priority to your interests and ensure any potential conflict is appropriately managed by applying the proper lending practices of the business. It’s part of our governance to ensure that any conflicts of interest that do arise are quickly identified and managed so that your confidence and trust in us is maintained. As such, we have adequate measures in place to ensure you are not disadvantaged as a result of conflicts of interest that may arise in the course of engaging in credit activities. Controlling conflict of interest is an inherent component of our business's risk management system. To ensure that our Finance Consultants prioritise your interests above their own, we follow a process that ensures solutions are made based on your objectives and requirements, as advised to us and the options you select.

Complaints and Disputes

If you are concerned or not satisfied with any part of our service, you can contact our internal disputes service by contacting our Complaints Handling Officer in these ways:

• Telephone: 0800 001 561

• Email: complaints@simplify.co.nz

• In writing to: Simplify Holdings NZ Limited, C/- Nz Tax Accountants Limited, Suite A, Floor 8 Harbourview Building, 152 Quay Street, Auckland Central, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand

• We will acknowledge your complaint within two business days of its receipt.

• We will let you know if we need any further information from you to investigate your complaint.

• We aim to resolve complaints as quickly and efficiently as possible.

• We will strive to resolve complaints within five business days, but in some cases where we need to obtain further detail, this may take a little longer to resolve.

If we cannot agree on how to fix the issue, or if you decide not to use the internal complaints scheme, you can contact Financial Services Complaints Limited (FSCL) for advice. This service will cost you nothing, and will help us resolve any disagreements. You can contact the FSCL at:

• Postal Address: Level 4, 101 Lambton Quay, Wellington 6011

• Telephone: 0800 347 257

• Email Address: complaints@fscl.org.nz

• Reference: FSP Number #455126 FSCL member #5975

Duties Information

Simplify is bound by its duties under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. We are required to:

• give priority to our clients interests by taking all reasonable steps to make sure our service is not materially influenced by our own interests;

• exercise care, diligence, and skill in providing our clients with our services;

• meet standards of competence, knowledge and skill set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (these are designed to make sure that we have the expertise needed to provide our clients with our services);

• meet standards of ethical behaviour, conduct and client care set by the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services (these are designed to make sure we treat you as we should and give you the right information to make informed decisions and choices).

This summary details only some of the duties and responsibilities that we have. Contact us for more information, or visit the Financial Markets Authority website at https://www.fma.govt.nz.

Our Licencing Information and Disclosure Statement was last updated on 24th December 2024.