Financial hardship

Financial difficulty can be due to a variety of factors, like:

• global pandemics
• natural disasters
• changes in employment, be it a loss of employment or reduced employment
• changes in health, including behaviours and/or
• changes in personal relationships.

Financial difficulty means you are experiencing difficulty meeting your repayment obligations or obligations under a guarantee to us.

If financial difficulty occurs, we're here to help. The earlier you raise the issue, there may be more options available to provide assistance or direct you to organisations who may be able to provide assistance.

Helping us help you

As a Bank who serves our members, we have your back and are willing to listen and, if we can, provide assistance to help you. Please talk to us as soon as your financial difficulty occurs.

To help us help you, you'll need to provide us with information about:

• What has happened to cause you financial difficulty?
• What's your income (the amount you earn or are paid) and your expenses (the amount you spend)?
• What're your assets (the things you own) and your liabilities (what you owe)?
• What is your plan, including the time-frame, to manage your financial position?
• How you think we may be able to assist you with your plan?

You can do this by contacting us on 1800 044 837 and asking to speak to someone about ‘financial difficulty’.  Please note that someone will only be available to talk to you in detail between 9am and 5pm on a business day in Sydney. If that is not convenient, please leave your name, contact details and preferred times when we can call you and we will call you back at one of those times.

You can also complete our Financial Hardship application form and send it through to us – our email details are on the form.

Once we understand your circumstances and your plan, we'll be able to give you our decision within 14 days.

Government assistance

If you are suffering from financial hardship, the Government has the following websites available for your assistance:

• National Debt Helpline
• Money Smart