With greater flexibility, competitive rates and no ongoing fees, Connective Essentials is a great option to discuss with both new customers and those looking to refinance.
What is Alternative Refinance Assessment?
Our Alternative Refinance Assessment process allows us to consider refinance applications for Owner Occupier customers who are considered a good credit risk, but may not fully meet standard lending criteria, including serviceability buffers.
How to submit an Alternative Refinance Assessment application
Chat to your customer about their situation and if they meet the criteria then simply complete this template confirming the customer is completing a like-for-like refinance, and is eligible for an Alternative Refinance Assessment.
You can also refer to the Advantedge Serviceability Calculator and use the ‘Alternative Refinance Assessment’ checkbox to see if eligible customers will meet serviceability requirements under the alternative assessment method.
Note: Full verification and other lending criteria still apply and may impact credit decisions.
Eligibility criteria – Updated on 23 Feb 2024
We recently updated the eligibility criteria for our Alternative Refinance Assessment, with the below application types no longer eligible:
- Investment Loan purpose
- Debt To Income Ratio above 6
Click here for information on how to treat pipeline applications for this change.
More information
Check out more information on eligibility criteria below and contact your Connective BDM to chat through any scenarios you have.
Eligibility criteria for Alternative Refinance Assessment
Applicants will be eligible for Alternative Refinance Assessment if the below criteria are met.
- Application must fail standard servicing assessment
- Individual applicants only, maximum 2 borrowers
- New loan is being refinanced in the same individual names as the existing loan
- Loan Purpose is for External Refinance
- Existing loan and requested loan must be Principal and Interest
- LVR is not greater than 80% and no LMI is required
- Refinanced loan amount must be for a maximum of 1% higher than the current Home Loan limit (verified via CCR or Bank Statement)
- New loan must be for the same term or longer, where the term is extended the risks of extra interest and repayments explained to the applicant/s
- Interest rate on the new loan facility is the same or lower compared to the customer advised rate on the existing facility
- Customer has had the existing home loan for a minimum of 12 months, with clear repayment history verified via CCR or Bank Statements
- All other existing facilities held by the customer/s and reported to CCR have had clear repayment history (reflected as ‘0’, ‘P’ and/or ‘R’) for 12 months or since opening (if open less than 12 months)
- There have been no financial difficulty or foreseeable changes declared
- Confirmation held that there have been no detrimental changes to the applicants’ primary income source since the existing loan was established
The following loans and applicants are not eligible:
- Interest only and Interest in Advance loans
- Non decision tool assessed lending
- Linked applications (where other applications are not eligible)
- Guarantor loans including Government Guarantee Schemes
- Debt Consolidation of Unsecured Debt
- Foreign Income / Non-Residents
- Bridging loans
- Construction loans
- Divorce/Separation (where borrowers will change)
- Investment Loan purpose
- Debt To Income Ratio above 6
