Financial hardship

Are you encountering financial difficulty?

No matter how well you plan your financial affairs, sometimes things do not go to plan and financial difficulty occurs. This can be due to a variety of factors, for example:

• 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.

How we can help

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 to help you

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

• What has happened to cause you financial difficulty?
• What is your income (the amount you earn or are paid) and your expenses (the amount you spend)?
• What are your assets (the things you own) and your liabilities (what you owe)?
• What is your plan, including the timeframe, 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 13 12 21 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 the 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 will 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

About us

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.