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Support During Covid-19
COVID-19 questions answered
FAQs
If you can start your repayments again at the end of your deferral, do.
If COVID has left you in difficulty and you need more time, talk to your bank.
While you work with your bank to restructure your loan you may be eligible for a further four-month deferral.
Learn more about the next phase of support.
Yes. Banks are offering loans at very low interest rates, supported by the Government, through an SME Loan guarantee. Your business would still need to meet certain lending criteria set out by your bank.
Yes. Banks have hardship teams in place to assist people experiencing financial difficulty as a result of COVID-19. Banks are offering customers the option to defer home loan repayments for up to six months. Contact your bank to discuss how they can help you.
If you have been impacted by COVID-19 and are experiencing hardship, banks can help. Assistance can include waiving fees, restructuring loans or other things to help get you through the pandemic. Check your banks website under ‘Hardship’.
As long as you were up to date on your payments before COVID-19 the deferral will not impact your record. This applies to deferrals on your mortgage or other credit products.
Banks don’t report information to credit bureaus about small business customers.
Your bank wants to partner with you through this difficult time. Getting people back to work and keeping them in their homes is what is in the best interests of all Australians.
Many banks are contacting their customers directly to see what help they may need. However, if you are worried it’s very important that you contact your bank as soon as possible. The earlier you contact your bank the more assistance they will be able to provide.
If you aren’t using your bank’s digital options, now is definitely the time to start!
All customers should be getting ‘digital ready’. This means if you have a smart phone, download your bank’s app and become familiar with how to use it. If you are unsure contact your bank who can help or ask a tech savvy friend to help walk you through it.
Make sure to keep your log-in details and passwords safe and don’t share them with anyone.
If you were behind in repayments before, banks won’t report the repayment history information for the deferral period, they will leave that field blank for the duration of the crisis deferral period.
For every dollar that an Australian bank lends, regulation requires them to hold a certain amount of capital. If banks don’t charge interest, even if the loan is deferred, the loan must then be treated as ‘impaired’ under the accounting and banking rules. The bank is then required to hold more capital to support that impaired loan.
If banks stopped charging interest on the hundreds of thousands of deferred loans during the COVID19 pandemic they would not have enough capital to provide new loans.
That would not be in the best interest of Australians and the need to support the Australian economy.
If you have Consumer Credit Insurance (CCI) it may help cover your credit card, personal loan or home loan repayments. Whether or not you are eligible to claim a CCI benefit will depend on your individual circumstances, including the level of cover you have purchased and how your employment circumstances have changed. Insurers are assessing CCI claims on an individual basis.
If you are unsure whether or not you have a CCI policy, check your loan documents, or check with your lender who will have all of the details of any related insurance products that they arranged for you.
Customers who can restart paying their loans should do so.
Customers with reduced incomes and ongoing financial difficulty due to COVID-19 may be eligible for a further deferral period of up to four months, during which time they will be expected to work with their bank to find the best solution to assist them to return to repayments through a restructure or variation to their loans.
This four-month extension will not be automatic, it will be provided to those who genuinely need some extra time.
As banks implement phase two of their COVID-19 support, they will continue to act in accordance with the Guiding Principles of the Banking Code of Practice and communicate in a clear and timely manner and treat customers in a fair and ethical manner.
Banks have deployed over 5000 extra frontline staff to help speed up response times.
If you cannot make a payment at the end of your six month deferral period or your four month extension, your bank will work with you on the best solution to suit your needs.
The extension takes effect from the end of an individual customers first six month deferral period.
This four month extension will not be automatic, it will be provided to those who genuinely need some extra time.
No. Participating member banks will not require one big repayment of the capitalised interest at the end of the deferral period.
It is a condition of the deferral scheme that participating banks will not require one big repayment of the capitalised interest at the end of the 6 month term. If your bank is participating in the scheme and has told you that it will require such a payment, please ask to speak with someone more senior at the bank.
The capitalised interest will be required to be repaid either by through extending the length of the loan, or increasing repayments after the deferral period
Customers with reduced incomes and ongoing financial difficulty due to COVID-19 may be eligible for a further deferral period of up to four months, during which time they will be expected to work with their bank to find the best solution to assist them to return to repayments through a restructure or variation to their loans.
This four-month extension will not be automatic, it will be provided to those who genuinely need some extra time.
Support During Covid-19