Have you joined AFCA yet?

August 27th, 2018

All mortgage and finance brokers are required to be a member of an External Dispute Resolution Scheme to comply with the National Consumer Credit Protection Act (NCCP). That means to remain compliant, you must become a member of the new Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) before August 31.

What do you have to do?

If you haven’t done it yet, you must apply and become a member of AFCA before August 31, 2018. You can submit your application online here. Here’s what you need to do.

If you are a Connective Credit Representative:

• You must currently have a valid CIO or FOS membership to complete your AFCA application. If it has expired, please renew it before going online to apply.
• There is a $55 application fee which will cover your AFCA membership until June 30, 2019. You will need to pay this fee when you complete the application.
• As an authorised Credit Representative of Connective, you will be prompted to enter our AFCA membership number, which is 45625.
• Email a copy of the payment receipt, your new AFCA membership number or a copy of your new membership certificate to admin@connective.com.au by August 31, 2018.

If you hold your own Australian Credit License:

• You will have received an invitation directly from AFCA containing a link to complete the required documentation. Please do this prior to August 31.
• Remind your Credit Representatives to apply for AFCA membership via the ACR portal and provide them with your AFCA membership number, as they will need this to complete their application. Please ensure they do this prior to August 31.

Why is this happening?

On February 14, 2018, the government passed a bill establishing AFCA as a new one stop shop for all consumer financial complaints. This will soon result in the closure of FOS and CIO, the relevant organisations currently providing external complaint resolution services for mortgage broker’s customers.

Don’t forget to update your business collateral!

Website and social media pages. Any references to CIO or FOS must be changed to AFCA using the details below prior to August 31. If you have a My marketing website, the marketing team will update this for you.

Phone 1800 931 678 (local call cost)

Australian Financial Complaints Authority

GPO Box 3

Melbourne Vic 3001

www.afca.org.au

Your own compliance documentation. If you use your own NCCP documentation and not the documents we provide in Mercury (such as the Credit Guide for example), please ensure these are updated and include your AFCA membership number.

Connective’s master documentation. The Compliance Team will be updating our master documentation in Mercury, however if you have pre-selected a master document this will need to be removed as it will not automatically update when we make changes. Please see your BSM for more information.

Connective Agreements. These will be updated by the Compliance Team and you will be advised as soon as the process is complete.

Need help or more information?

You can find out more about the transition to AFCA by visiting the AFCA FAQs webpage.

If you have any other questions relating to the transition, your Compliance Support Manager is ready to help. Just click your help icon in Mercury to get in touch via the Helpdesk, or alternatively, please email us at compliance@connective.com.au.