Lending Responsibly

Lending responsibly and dealing with customers

At Latitude we are committed to ensuring that we provide a great experience for our customers whilst also ensuring that we always lend responsibly. We want to remind you of our expectations in being an accredited broker with Latitude as well as your own obligations under lending regulations when interviewing customers and capturing all needs, income and expenses in your submission.

We continue to monitor all applications and customer information provided and have increased our monitoring in the current environment. Any breaches of Responsible Lending obligations or Latitude’s process and policy may result in actions against the Broker.

Your role in lending responsibly

Listed below are some critical points to remember when collecting customer information and completing loan submissions:

• Meet with the customer and ask all questions and capture all customer information accurately.
• It is your (the broker’s) responsibility to ensure you are making reasonable enquiries into the customer’s situation and record this information accurately in the application. If the information doesn’t make sense or doesn’t look accurate it is your obligation to investigate further to uncover the correct information.
• Remember that any falsifying of information is considered fraud. 
• If you deliberately misrepresent customer information or do not make sufficient inquiries to uncover your customer’s true situation, your accreditation with Latitude will be suspended and/or terminated. 
• Always use your own Broker code and login, do not share your login information with any other people (outside of your administration team). 
• Ensure you protect your password and keep it secure. Always log off after use. 
• All assistants that communicate with Latitude on your behalf must have their details registered with Latitude. 
• Never enter dummy data into any fields (such as the customers email address), as it may cause avoidable delays. 
• You must provide the customer with the full Terms and Conditions. 
• You must provide the customer with a copy of the contract. 
• You must provide the customer with a copy of the Credit Guide. 
• You must provide the customer with a copy of the Privacy Statement. 

Dealing with customers

Ensure you accurately capture the following when completing Personal Loan and Motor Loan submissions including: 

• Number of Dependents: number of people who are financially dependent on the applicant (other than a spouse/partner)

• Residential status: 
• If a customer owns their home outright, select ‘owner’ 
• If a customer has a mortgage on the house they live in select ‘mortgage’ 
• If a customer has an investment property but is renting, select ‘renting’ 
• Expenses: to be captured as the applicant’s share of monthly values. Only include their share of the listed expenses (which is not necessarily the total for the household). Make sure you record the information the customer provides accurately. Don’t round up or down and investigate any expenses that don’t appear correct. 

• Debts: you must capture ALL debts - even if the debt is in joint names and/or repayments shared, the entire amount must be recorded. This includes capturing all credit card, personal loan, motor loan and home loan debts. In the application capture the entire original principle, current balance and the customer’s share of repayment (where applicable). We may still apply our own minimum thresholds to these repayments. 

• Changes to current financial circumstances: you must enquire as to whether the customer can foresee any adverse changes to their current financial circumstances. If yes, you must advise us of the anticipated changes. 

• Product Selection: maintain a record of the discussion/s had with the customer on the product selected (i.e. variable/fixed). 

• Bank Account: Confirm the Bank Details you enter for the Direct Debit and Disbursement (when applicable) are in the names of the applicant.

Please carefully read the following privacy statements and ensure you have read and understand what the expectations are when submitting applications with Latitude;

Your clients must consent to the following statements;

• I confirm that the information contained in this Application is complete and correct and truly represents my position at the time of signing the Application.
• I acknowledge and agree to the matters set out in the Privacy Notice which sets out how Latitude collects, uses and discloses my personal information.
• If licensed in my own right, I confirm that I hold and will continue to maintain status as:
• Certified Credit Adviser/Credit Adviser/Associate Credit Adviser/Accredited Mortgage Consultant through MFAA, or
• Accredited Member/Associate Member of the FBAA, and
• that I am and will continue to be a member of an  ASIC approved EDR scheme.
• I acknowledge that, except as described in (5) below, I have no authority to act as an agent for Latitude Financial Services or in any way act on behalf of Latitude Financial Services, and that my appointment as a Broker is  an appointment made solely by the Introducer named in Schedule 1.
• I understand that I will, at Latitude Financial Services’ request (and in each case subject to the express terms of its request), be its agent when:
• Performing a statutory obligation on Latitude Financial Services’ behalf;
• Giving a pre-contractual disclosure document to a prospective customer;
• Identifying and/or verifying the identity of a prospective customer in accordance with the AML/CTF legislation and requirements; and
• Obtaining a required privacy consent from the prospective customer before collecting, using or disclosing their information.
• I agree that I will always store Latitude customers personal information in a secure manner. This includes ensuring access to customers personal information is restricted only to those that require the access. 
• Electronic documents will be stored on systems that meets industry best practice around data retention, storage and encryption practices and have necessary controls such as updated anti-virus and anti-malware installed. Electronic equipment used in the provision of the services will have any information securely destroyed prior to it being re-purposed or sold. 
• Physical documents will be stored in a locked file cabinet and will be destroyed using industry best practices (eg: cross cut shredder).
• If I am aware of any information security incident, including an eligible data breach incident involving Latitude customers personal information, I will follow the appropriate process internally and ensure Latitude is notified of the data breach incident within 24 hours.
• I will not share my Latitude broker login information with any other person and will do the required to reset login information in the event I believe it may be compromised. 

Please carefully read the following statements and ensure you have read and understand what the expectations are when submitting applications with Latitude;

• I understand that I am required to ensure the customer is identified in accordance with the AML/CTF Act and Rules prior to a designated service being provided via the collection of, and submission of identification  documents and will ensure any discrepancies are managed appropriately (e.g. a certified change of name document is provided where a customer has changed their name).

• I understand that Latitude will not rely on any identification completed via biometrics or electronic verification that Latitude has no ownership, oversight or control over.

• I understand that I must have read the required scripting and obtained the relevant customer consents to electronic identification checks (where applicable).

• I understand that I am required to ensure that the customer I speak to is the same person as the applicant and have verified this prior to providing an application. 

• I understand that I must escalate anything suspicious regarding a customer application to Latitude (e.g. suspicious customer behaviour, false, forged or tampered with documentation) and I must not tip off any customer that I have formed a suspicion. 

• I understand that I must retain a record of all customer interactions and identification/documentation and provide this to Latitude for their own record keeping processes. I must ensure that any records are deidentified/deleted in accordance with the Record Keeping provision of the AML/CTF Act and Rules. 

• Latitude promotes compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) and requires any approved brokers and sub-originators with which it deals to ensure they take all reasonable steps to ensure that within their operations and supply chains, there is no violation of modern slavery laws. You must notify Latitude as soon as you become aware of any actual or suspected violations. We encourage our third parties to view Latitude’s Modern Slavery Statement for further information regarding Latitude’s approach to combatting modern slavery. 

Please carefully read the following statements and ensure you have read and understand what the expectations are when submitting applications with Latitude;

• You must comply with any policies, procedures and training requirements that we notify you of.
  

• From time to time, we may publish target market determinations in connection with the products we issue. If you distribute our products, you must ensure that: 

• Any retail product distribution conduct you engage in is consistent with the target market determination published by us for the relevant product.
  

• You do anything we reasonably require you to do to help us comply with our obligations under Part 7.8A of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) as an issuer of a financial product. 

Except to the extent, it would cause you to breach another law.

• You must provide us with all information and documents that we require you to provide, at the times requested. The types of information and documents we may require may be set out in the manuals, policies or guidelines provided by us from time to time. It may also be set out in the target market determination for the product.
  

• Without limiting your obligations under law, you must promptly notify us if
  you become aware of anything that would constitute a significant dealing or other event or circumstance that would reasonably suggest that the target market determination for a financial product is no longer appropriate.
  

• You agree to us conducting audits in connection with your compliance with your obligations under our arrangement with you. We may conduct this audit as part of an existing audit right we have under that arrangement or after providing you with reasonable notice. 

Your Role In Fraud Prevention

• The voice or language of the “customer” is a mismatch to their profile – i.e. there appears to be a mismatch in sex, age or ethnicity. 
• The applicant is hesitant in providing details or is overly pushy or persistent on getting the funds immediately. 
• The customer avoids phone calls and only communicate via email or text message. 
• A friend or relative is translating on behalf of the applicant. 
• Any requested documents are either provided unrealistically quickly or there is hesitation in providing them at all. For example, if a bank statement and ATO Notice of Assessment were provided within minutes of being requested. 
• The customer refuses to complete the biometric identity verification process. 
• The income or asset position of the applicant appears unusual for their profile. For example:
• Café worker earning $100k+ p.a. 
• 22-year-old owning their home outright.
• Self-employed customer with high income but bank statement or asset position does not support income claimed.