Understanding the Offset Home Loan Facility

An Offset Home Loan Facility is our home loan product that offers fully transactional offset accounts.

An offset account can be linked to a variable rate home loan account to help reduce interest paid while offering the same flexibility of an everyday transaction account with the option of a linked Debit Mastercard.
 

Include at least one variable rate home loan account

When applying for (or switching to) an Offset Home Loan Facility, at least one variable rate home loan account must be included in the facility. The variable rate home loan account must also have a minimum limit of $20,000.

Our Personal Help Centre has information for you and your customer on how the Offset Home Loan Facility and offset accounts work. This includes:

• understanding how an offset account works with the home loan account
• what happens to your customer’s repayments when an offset account is linked
• what they need to be aware of, including that an offset account can only be linked to one home loan variable rate account, and will only offset the limit of that account, not the home loan facility limit
• opening additional offsets after settlement and more.
  

The Offset Home Loan Facility fee is payable in two equal instalments of $124 every six months. The fee is payable per facility. The first fee is payable six months after your settlement date, and payable every six months thereafter.

If you close the facility or switch to a Basic Home Loan, the fee will stop being charged. However, as the fee is charged in arrears (that is, after the relevant benefit period), past fees can’t be refunded.

Note: The $124 fee amount applies to new Offset Home Loan facilities. Fee amounts may vary depending on when the home loan settled.

Generally, we don’t waive the Offset Home Loan Facility fee.

Your customer may be eligible to have the facility fee waived on additional Offset Home Loan Facilities that settle within 6 months after the initial facility settled. The fee will be noted on the loan documents of subsequent applications, however, we won’t charge the fee if the borrower(s) are in common and are currently paying a facility fee on a home loan that settled within the last six months (for up to 5 home loans).

Follow the scenario below to understand when the Offset Home Loan Facility fee is waived. 

Scenario: If borrower A and borrower B settled Loan 1 on January 1st this year and pay the facility fee:

• In March, borrower A or B settle Loan 2, the fee is waived
• In April, borrower A and C settle Loan 3, the fee is also waived because borrower A is already paying a facility fee (on Loan 1)
• In May, borrower C settles a loan, they are charged a facility fee, as they haven’t been charged a fee yet
• If loans settled by borrowers A or B exceed 5 before June 30, a fee will be incurred on the next home loan (e.g. more than 5 loans settled within 6 months of Loan 1)
• Any loan settled from July for borrower A or B, will incur a fee (e.g. more than 6 months since Loan 1 settled).

Note: in the above scenario, a ‘borrower’ includes an individual borrower or a guarantor on a company or trust home loan.

Find information on the key differences between Offset and Basic Home Loan Facilities in our Personal Help Centre article, which will help you compare features and fees for both facilities.

Your customer can apply for a Macquarie Black or Platinum credit card as part of their Offset Home Loan Facility application in ApplyOnline and earn Macquarie Rewards points on eligible purchases. If your customer wishes to apply for a credit card, you’ll need to request this in ApplyOnline.

Note on waiving the credit card fee:

• While the primary card holder is also a borrower with an Offset Home Loan Facility, typically the annual Credit Card fee will be waived
• If the Facility is closed or switched to a Basic Home Loan Facility, the waiver will be removed
• A maximum of one credit card can receive benefits from each Offset Home Loan Facility (provided the primary cardholder is a borrower on the Facility). This doesn’t include an additional cardholder.

The credit card will be set up once the credit card credit assessment has been completed. This may not be at the same time the home loan application is assessed.

For more information, see Applying for a credit card or additional cardholder.

Your customer can contact our team via live chat in Macquarie Online Banking or the Macquarie Mobile Banking app to start the process of switching their home loan facility.

Please note, there are requirements they need to meet to switch to an Offset Home Loan Facility and a Facility fee will be payable.

To switch to the Basic Home Loan, see Switching between Basic and Offset Home Loans.

Note: switching home loan products is only available for home loans with a BSB starting with 182.

We don’t offer offset accounts linked to fixed rate home loan accounts. If your customer would like a 100% fixed loan, they should apply for the Basic Home Loan Facility.

However, your customer can have multiple home loan accounts within their Offset Home Loan Facility, which allows them to have different purposes, repayment and rate types on the different home loan accounts. Noting the facility must contain at least one variable rate home loan account with at least a $20,000 limit.

For example, the below Offset Home Loan Facility has a variable home loan account with offset accounts linked and a fixed home loan account. The offset accounts can only be linked to the variable home loan account and will only offset the balance of the variable home loan account (e.g. $400,000), not the Home Loan Facility (e.g. $800,000).