Submitting a principal increase or top-up application

A principal increase, or top-up, is typically completed via a principal increase application (PIA) in ApplyOnline. This may be available to your customer by either:

• increasing an existing home loan account, or
• creating a new home loan account (e.g. a sub-account) within the existing home loan facility.

Both scenarios would be completed via a principal increase application in ApplyOnline (e.g. ‘PIA-123456’), not a new loan application (e.g. ‘APP-123456’).

A principal increase enables your customer to keep their existing home loan account(s) and access additional lending.

Principal increase applications (PIA) are typically available on most existing Macquarie home loans. However, all eligibility requirements need to be met to proceed with a PIA. If the existing loan is not eligible for a principal increase, an internal refinance application may be required.

Your customer will generally be eligible to apply for a principal increase if:

• you're the same broker who originated the existing home loan*
• you're from the same aggregator and broker firm that originated the existing loan*
• the existing home loan has a BSB starting 182
• the top up amount is at least $25,000
• no other variations are required on the home loan, i.e. the borrower(s) and security property(s) on the principal increase application must be entered into ApplyOnline as per the existing home loan's current structure
• the borrower(s) aren’t company or trust borrowers
• your customer is not currently considered an expatriate and/or their loan wasn’t originally settled as an expatriate loan
• the existing security property is not being used as collateral with another Macquarie home loan facility (via a cross-collateral loan). This doesn’t include where there are multiple security properties securing one home loan facility (e.g. no other facility inolved)
• the LVR of the home loan after the principal increase application will be 80% or below 
• your customer’s loan is not for construction or renovation where progress drawdowns are required.

*If you’re not the originating broker, or other changes have occurred since settling your customer’s home loan with Macquarie, contact your BDM.

Generally, there are no fees charged by Macquarie for a principal increase application.

It’s important that your customer’s home loan works for them. When completing a principal increase application (PIA), creating a new home loan account within their existing home loan facility may provide additional flexibility to how they manage their accounts. Your customer will retain all their existing home loan accounts and be able to increase their lending by creating an additional home loan account (or split) within their current home loan facility.

If your customer and their home loan meet the requirements to complete a principal increase, you’ll always have the option to create a new home loan account.

The loan term can’t be extended with a principal increase application. When entering the principal increase application, you need to ensure the loan term and expiry date matches the existing home loan. This also applies to increasing an existing interest only home loan account.

Where a loan term extension is required, this will need to be completed via an internal refinance application.

In order to prepare a principal increase application, you’ll need to complete the following tabs in ApplyOnline:

• Application and applicant
• Loans 
• Securities

As your customer is an existing home loan customer with Macquarie, there are typically fewer supporting document requirements compared to a new application. 

Generally, documents required for a principal increase application include recent (last 60 days) income documents for employment (e.g. payslip) and any investment income (e.g. a rental property income statement or share dividend statement).

View our supporting documents checklist for more information on acceptable income verification documents (see the Income-related and Refinance sections).

Typically, your customer won’t need to complete verification of identity for a principal increase. In some circumstances our team may request further verification to be completed, if your customer has been with us for an extended period.

If the application has already been submitted, you’ll need to clone and resubmit the application in ApplyOnline to change the application type from ‘New loan’ to ‘Principal Increase’.

To support you through submitting a principal increase application, follow the ApplyOnline steps outlined above. 

Once the principal increase application is submitted, any future edits will need to be cloned to a new principal increase application.

Once completed, if an APP number is generated at submission (e.g. APP-123456), you haven’t entered the application type as 'Principal increase' and the application will need to be withdrawn and cloned. 

You can check the status of a principal increase application after you’ve submitted it on our Broker Portal, simply select the Applications tab to view all applications in progress. For more details, including comments from our team and outstanding documents, select the principal increase (e.g. PIA-12345) from your Application List.

We’ll also send bank channel messages (BCMs) to provide updates on how your application is progressing.