Understanding balance and limit transfers between home loan sub-accounts

What are balance only, limit only and balance and limit transfers?

Within a home loan facility, your customer can restructure their balance and limit across home loan accounts that are within the same home loan facility. These changes don’t change the total limit available within the facility. Restrictions do apply, ensure you check if your customer’s accounts are eligible before requesting.

They include:

Limit only transfer
Balance only transfer
Balance and limit transfer

Note: this variation is only available on home loans with a BSB starting 182.

Limit only transfer

A limit only transfer (LOT) enables your customer to move only the limit of one account to another within a home loan facility. For example:

Account 1 has $300,000 limit, with $150,000 balance (i.e. $150,000 available balance in redraw)
Account 2 has $300,000 limit, with $300,000 balance.

If your customer wants to move some of the limit from Account 1 to Account 2 (e.g. move $100,000), this could be completed by a LOT. After the LOT, the account structure would be:

Account 1 has $200,000 limit, with $150,000 balance (i.e. limit decreases and there’s no change to balance)
Account 2 has $400,000 limit, with $300,000 balance (i.e. limit increases, and there’s no change to balance).

Balance only transfer

A balance only transfer (BOT) enables your customer to move only the balance of one account to another. For example:

Account 1 has $300,000 limit, with $300,000 balance (i.e. fully drawn)
Account 2 has $300,000 limit, with $200,000 balance (i.e. $100,000 available balance in redraw).

If your customer wants to move some of the balance from Account 1 to Account 2 (e.g. move $100,000), this could be completed by a BOT. After the BOT, the account structure would be:

Account 1 has $300,000 limit, with $200,000 balance (i.e. no change to limit, and the balance decreases)
Account 2 has $300,000 limit, with $300,000 balance (i.e. no change to limit, and the balance increases).

Balance and limit transfer

A balance and limit transfer (BLT) enables your customer to move the balance and the limit from one account to another. For example:

Account 1 has $300,000 limit, with $300,000 balance (i.e. fully drawn)
Account 2 has $300,000 limit, with $300,000 balance.

If your customer wants to move some of the limit and balance from Account 1 to Account 2 (e.g. move $100,000), this could be completed by a BLT. After the BLT, the account structure would be:

Account 1 has $200,000 limit, with $200,000 balance (i.e. limit and balance has decreased)
Account 2 has $400,000 limit, with $400,000 balance (i.e. limit and balance has increased).

How can my customer request a balance and/or limit transfer?

To arrange a limit only, balance only or balance and limit transfer between your customer’s home loan accounts, they’ll need to contact us via live chat so they can request and accept the changes.

To assist them with requesting any of these changes, ensure they state the type of transfer and are prepared prior to the conversation with amounts and account numbers to transfer to. For example:

they want to transfer $X of the limit or balance from account ending XXX to account ending XXX
they don’t want to reduce the overall limit of the home loan facility, and
clearly state which home loan account they wish to close (if applicable).

If they’re requesting to close an account as part of the transfer of limits, ensure they’re clear they aren’t requesting to reduce the limit – this would be a permanent limit reduction.

Note: this variation is only available on home loans with a BSB starting 182.

What should my customer know before requesting a limit only, balance only or balance and limit transfer?

To help prepare them for the change, it’s important to remember:

we can only transfer limits and balances between accounts within the same home loan facility
the end balances can’t exceed the facility limit 
end limits on (each of their) accounts must be above $20,000 
changes to a fixed rate account may incur a break cost 
where loan purposes of the accounts are different, the predominant purpose of the home loan facility (i.e. the purpose the lending was for at origination) must not change after the transfer(s) is completed
we’re unable to transfer a limit to an interest only loan account without a top-up application being approved for the interest only portion of the facility. Any increase to the interest only limit will require a credit assessment, and
their home loan accounts must have BSB starting 182.

When will their repayments change after the limit only, balance only or balance and limit transfer?

For home loan accounts with BSB starting 182, when transferring a limit to another home loan account, the limit transfers will trigger a payment change and repayments will be adjusted on the next repayment date.

In most instances the change will be effective from the repayment date that follows the next scheduled monthly repayment.

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