Hardship Policy

 HANDOUT LOANS PTY LTD (trading as HANDOUT)

1. Introduction

1.1. Background

HANDOUT LOANS PTY LTD trading as HANDOUT (ABN 17 638 850 941) Australian Credit Licence Number 522410 (referred to as ‘Handout’, ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’) is regulated by the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (the Act) and Schedule 1 to the Act (the Credit Code). Where your loan is one to which the Act and the Credit Code apply, then you have the right to request assistance when you are in ‘Financial Hardship’.

This policy has been developed to explain how we may be able to assist you if you find yourself in ‘Financial Hardship’. The information set out in this policy is general in nature and does not take your specific circumstances into account.

1.2. What is ‘Financial Hardship’

‘Financial Hardship’ is difficult to define because it depends upon your circumstances. It will generally arise where you are not able to pay your bills. That can arise due to one or more different reasons which can include:

• changes in your employment status which may mean that you no longer receive the same income as before;
• changes in your family or relationship status which may mean that, due to those changes, you do not have the disposable income you previously did;
• illness or injury which may mean that you are unable to work or you have other urgent bills which you could not have foreseen; or
• natural disasters which may mean that you have other urgent bills which you could not have foreseen or, you may not be able to work as you are attending to the consequences of that disaster.

There may be other reasons which may depend upon your circumstances.

Where you find yourself unable to meet your obligations to us due to a Financial Hardship, you are entitled to apply to us for hardship relief. Any hardship relief we provide is a variation to your agreement with us.

1.3. Other options which you may have

In addition to making a formal request for hardship relief under this policy, you may be able to:

• reschedule your repayments to us; and/or
• enter into an informal resolution with us.

These options may be faster and simpler than seeking to make a request for hardship under this policy. However, whether these options are appropriate for you will depend upon your own circumstances and the duration that you expect your difficulties to exist. You have a statutory right to have a request for hardship relief considered even if you have engaged in these other options.

1.4. Informal Resolution

As part of an informal resolution with us, we may be able to pause or reduce your repayments or any enforcement action or waive any fees or penalties which we may have charged. A benefit of this resolution is that it may be faster and may not require you to provide documents to substantiate your situation.

2. Making a formal hardship request

In order to make a request under this policy you must either:

• contact us by email to: hardship@handout.com.au
• contact us by telephone at: 02 9161 4200

So that we can avoid sending you emails requesting information and documents when that may not be what you want, we will contact you for the following purposes:

• to attempt to understand your situation;
• to understand whether you want to explore any informal options that you may have (as identified in section 1.3) or, if you want to be enrolled in our formal hardship program; and
• to understand whether you want to explore any informal options that you may have (as identified in section 1.3) or, if you want to be enrolled in our formal hardship program; and

Where you want to be enrolled in our formal hardship program, we will do so.

3. Assessing hardship requests

In order for us to consider your formal request for a hardship relief, we need to understand your situation.

3.1. Requests for information and documents by us

Within 21 days of the date you are enrolled in our formal hardship program, we may ask that you provide documents to support your request and to allow us to decide whether you are or will be unable to meet your obligations to us and, how we may be able to change our agreement with you if you are unable to meet your obligations.

For example, we may request that you provide one or more of the following:

• proof of your income (such as your current pay slip, bank statements or letter of benefits from Centrelink);
• a medical certificate;
• documents which establish the end of your employment (such as a notice of termination or redundancy);
• documents which establish your weekly living expenses (such as food, utilities, rent and petrol); or
• a statement of financial position or a statement of income and expenditure.

The information and documents that we may require will depend upon your situation. You are required to comply with our requests to provide information and documents within 21 days of our request. If you do not comply with those requests, then we are required to decide whether we can provide any hardship relief without the benefit of that information or those documents.

3.2. Decision making process

Where you are enrolled in our formal hardship program, we will consider your request together with the supporting information and documents that we request from you and that you provide.

We will take into account a number of factors including whether there is a need for assistance or, if the assistance will only delay your default and your capacity to repay having regard to your living expenses.

3.3. What happens if we agree to arrange hardship relief

We may decide to agree to provide you with hardship relief to address your inability to meet your obligations to us. We will seek to provide relief which we consider is appropriate to your situation. That relief may include extending the period of your agreement with us and reducing the amount of your repayment accordingly, postponing your repayments for a period of time or both.

Where we decide to provide you with hardship relief, we will provide you with a notice of our decision which will include information about terms of the new arrangement, the changes in the terms of your agreement with us, and any information required by law.

If your agreement with us involves more than one party, we will require all parties to agree to that variation. Any guarantors to the contract will also be notified of our final decision.

3.4. What happens if we refuse your request for hardship relief

We do not have to agree to any formal request for hardship relief. We will not agree to a formal request for a hardship relief if we do not believe there is a reasonable cause for your inability to meet your obligations or, if we reasonably believe that you would not be able to meet your obligations to us even if we agreed to your request.

Where we refuse your formal request for a hardship relief, we will give you a notice that confirms that decision and why we have made that decision. We will also inform you that if you are not satisfied with that outcome, you can make a complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority either:

• By contacting the Australian Financial Complaints Authority by telephone: 1800 931 678; or
• By making a complaint online: https://www.afca.org.au/make-a-complaint.

3.5. How long does this process take?

The duration of this process depends upon whether you are asked by us to provide supporting information and documents (as explained in section 3.1) and how quickly you may provide them.
‍
The table below explains when you can expect a response from us: