Last updated 1 April 2020.
First and foremost, if you’re dealing with financial hardship, speak to your Entourage broker. They are trained in how to help support you during tough times and will be able to assist you in analysing your position and help you find the best way forward.
You can start with the Australian Banking Association financial difficulty webpage – they offer a great resource for those who are struggling you can view it here.
For businesses unsure of what packages have been announced, check out this graphic here. Credit to Michael A & Wheelhouse Advisory.
Below is a list of lenders with links to their specific support packages. Simply click on the name of your bank to view their personal and business support packages.
Big 4 Banks:
Personal customers
- Deferring home loan repayments
- Reducing home loan interest rates
Business customers:
- 6 month deferral on small business repayments
- Temporary overdraft limit increases
- Early access to term deposits without fees
- Access to extra credit
- Reducing business loan interest rates
Personal lending customers:
- Defer repayments for up to 6 months
- Dropping interest rates across a range of products
- Branches are staying open
Business customers:
- Offering an unsecured loan of up to $250,000 (lending criteria applies) with no establishment or account fees, and no repayments required for six months for business with less than $50m turnover.
- Automatically deferring BetterBusiness Loan and Asset Finance repayments for eligible small business and community group customers with total lending limits with CommBank up to $3 million in April, May and June 2020. From July, customers will be able to opt-in to receive a further three month deferral if needed in line with the ABA loan deferral arrangements.
- Reducing rates on BetterBusiness Loans, Business Overdrafts and other products
- Providing additional resourcing and extended hours for commercial lending teams to ensure faster decision times
For SME’s facing financial hardship:
- Deferring repayments on overdraft products, for 90 days
- Waiving merchant terminal fees for impacted customers with CommBank merchant terminals, for 90 days
- Waiving early redraw fees on business term deposit accounts (including Farm Management Deposit accounts)
- Waiving establishment fees and excess interest on Temporary Excess products
- Deferring repayments on vehicle and equipment finance loans, and providing tailored restructuring options that meet individual customer needs
Personal customers:
- Defer home loan repayments for up to six months, if experiencing financial challenges, including a three-month checkpoint.
- Access a 10-month term deposit rate of 1.75% p.a. for 10 months, effective March 24. This is for personal customers only, with deposits of $5,000 to $2 million.
- Access fixed home loan rates of 2.39% p.a. for 1 year, 2.29% p.a. for 2 and 3 year, and 2.79% p.a. for 5 year (owner-occupier P&I), effective March 25. First home buyers will have access to a rate of 2.19% p.a., fixed for two years. This delivers reductions of between 10 and 60bps (table below).
- Access over $20bn in redraw and more than $30bn in offset. Note: Around 1 in 2 accounts are at least 6 months ahead based on redraw & offset balance; and 4 in 10 are 12 months ahead.
- Reduce repayments on variable rate loans. Over the past 12 months, reductions of 84bps to our owner-occupier variable rates have provide a potential benefit of $3,360 per year to customers with a $400,000 loan. Most customers have not yet taken the option to reduce their payments.
Business customers:
- Defer principal and interest for up to six months on a range of business loans, including floating and variable rates, and equipment finance loans, if experiencing financial difficulty;
- Receive a 200-basis point rate cut on new loans and all overdrafts on QuickBiz, effective March 30;
- Receive an additional 100-basis point reduction on variable rates for small business loans, effective March 30. This is on top of a 25-bps reduction earlier this month;
- Access up to $65 billion of additional secured limits to pre-assessed customers, with $7 billion currently available for fast assessment process;
- Access up to $9 billion in additional limits for unsecured lending for existing customers via QuickBiz; and
- Defer business credit card repayments.
Personal customers:
- $10B home loan lending commitment (those who want to borrow, and qualify, will have access to funds)
- Reduced fixed home loan rates
- Those who suffer lost income due to coronavirus can defer loan repayments for up to 3 months
- Increased term deposit return interest rates
Business customers:
- Unsecured three-year term loan up to $250,000 for eligible new and existing customers with turnover of less than $50M, as part of the Federal Government’s latest economic support measures that guarantees 50 per cent of new loans issued by eligible lenders to small and medium size businesses. Effective Monday 23 March 2020, credit criteria applies.
- 400 basis point reduction on unsecured lending term loan for new and existing customers, effective Monday 23 March 2020.
- 200 basis point reduction on overdrafts for new and existing customers, effective Monday 6 April 2020.
- 100 basis point interest rate reduction for small business cash-based loans, effective Monday 6 April 2020.
- Repayment relief for small business customers: Westpac small business customers who need help to manage their cash flow can defer principal and interest repayments of business term loans for up to six months. Find out how to apply here.
- Merchant terminal rental fee waivers for up to three months.
- Helping small and medium businesses take advantage of the increased instant asset write-off and accelerated depreciation provisions in the Federal Government stimulus package with no establishment fees for equipment finance loans until the end of June 2020.
- Additional help already available to small business customers who are impacted by recent disasters and are experiencing hardship
- Deferred payments for Business credit cards for a period of at least three months
- Fee free redraw
- Restructuring and consolidating loans
- Termination of a term deposit without the interest rate adjustment
Smaller lenders:
- Defer repayments for up to six months
- Reduction on three year fixed rate loans for new owner occupied P&I loans and
- Existing customers who switch to the package
- A deferral of scheduled loan repayments
- Waiving fees and charges
- Interest free periods or no interest rate increases
- Debt consolidation to help make repayments more manageable.
- Home Loan and Business Loan customers can apply for relief on loans for up to three months
- Waiver of fees for the restructuring or consolidation of loans
- Credit card customers can apply for an emergency credit card limit increase
- Discounted interest rates on new personal loans taken out by existing Bendigo Bank customers
- Waiver of interest rate reduction for early withdrawals on term deposits prior to maturity
- Deferral of payments and extensions for Equipment Finance on a case by case basis
- Defer home loan repayments
- Switch to Interest Only option
- Early access to term deposits without fees
- Waiver of any usual non-payment fees
- Offering clients access to their existing financial hardship program
The relief package for COVID-19 pandemic impacted members includes:
- Hardship provisions to help impacted customers through their situation.
- Deferral of scheduled loan repayment
- Waiving of fees associated with restructuring of loans needed, such as switching from P&I to IO
- Waiving or refunding fees incurred due to virus impacts, for example missed payments
- Early redemption of Term Deposits and Farm Deposit Management accounts for customers impacted, without fees or penalties.
- Defer home loan repayments for up to 6 months
- Option to redraw on loan if available
- Immediate support includes deferral of payments for home loan, cards and vehicle finance products for 6 months
- reduction in credit card interest rates for an agreed period
- a range of emergency assistance measures to support clients with urgent needs
- specialist and tailored assistance for business clients experiencing flow on impacts from coronavirus, including loan restructuring and reassessment of loan terms.
- Customers have the opportunity to:
- defer scheduled loan repayments,
- rearrange loans without establishment fees (perhaps moving from principal plus interest on their repayments to solely interest when income is uncertain), and withdraw early from term deposits without fees.
- Businesses will be able to do the same for farm management deposits, and
- Receive working capital assistance.
- Neither customer type will see interest rates increase.
ME Bank have a financial hardship relief support service. View it here.
AMP financial hardship relief online here.
Pepper Money offer financial hardship relief too online here.
If your bank isn’t listed, head over to the Australian Banking Association financial difficulty webpage here.
Additional resources:
- National Debt Hotline – free financial counselling
- Davidson Institute
- Money Smart
- Human Services (Centrelink)
- Job Access
