What is financial hardship?
We understand that unexpected life events can happen, which may sometimes make it difficult to maintain your loan repayments.
It is important to remember that the sooner you talk to us, the sooner our team can work with you on a plan to help improve your situation.
You may be in financial hardship if you are having difficulty meeting your financial obligations (like paying bills or repayments on your loans). This can occur for a variety of reasons, including:
• unemployment or a reduction of income;
• injury or illness;
• natural disaster;
• a death in the family or other significant life event or
• an increase in other bills or expenditures.
Brighten’s approach to hardship
Brighten is committed to helping customers who are experiencing hardship or financial difficulty. We encourage customers to talk to us directly to discuss available options. We’ll also proactively contact our customers who may be experiencing financial difficulty.
During our discussions with you, we will review your request based on the reason for your hardship, along with asking you questions which are designed to assist us with our investigation. These may include:
• The reason for the change in your financial situation which caused the hardship?
• Your ability to make any loan repayments, and if so when will you commence these?
• Whether this situation will be long or short term?
We can then work together to explore payment options which are specifically designed to cater for your change in circumstances.
Our hardship team will work with you to offer a solution that is most suitable for your circumstances based on information you provide us
How do I apply for hardship assistance?
You can reach our Financial Assistant Team, Mondays to Fridays, 9 am – 5 pm AEST.
Australia: +61 2 8880 6633 | Overseas +852 3727 0928
You will need to complete a Financial Assistance Application form and send this to us, or if you wish to nominate someone to speak on your behalf, please complete the Third Party Authority form and send this to us via one of the following methods:
Email: [email protected]
Post: BOX H338, Australia Square, NSW 1215, Australia
You can rest assured that your request will be treated with strictest confidence as we work together to find a solution.