Hardship

Contact us to explore how we can help.

If your circumstances are affecting or are likely to affect your ability to meet your loan commitments to SMB, please contact us so we can explore ways to assist you. You may be able to submit a Financial Hardship Application and request changes (a variation) to your loan, such as extending the loan term, reducing the amount of your regular payments for a period, postponing payments for a time, or combining these options. 

Hardship assistance options are:

Repayment Holiday

Your regular payment pauses during the hardship period to give you time to respond to your circumstances. It’s important to understand that interest is still charged on the loan. This means interest accumulates and is capitalised to the loan balance over the hardship period. When the repayment holiday ends, your regular payments will be higher.

Extending Loan Term

Extending your current loan term will lower your repayment amount during the hardship period. However, it will take you longer to fully repay the loan, and you'll pay more interest over the entire loan term.

Repayment Holiday and Extending Loan Term

This option combines the two options mentioned above. It allows for a repayment holiday to pause payments during the hardship period and extends the loan term. As a result, your regular payments will increase at the end of the repayment holiday, although this increase will be slightly less than if you had a repayment holiday only, leading to more interest paid over the entire loan term.

SMB’s hardship application

To evaluate an application for hardship assistance, we require information regarding the hardship, its expected duration, and your financial situation. Our application requests information and documents that you must provide to support your application. 

The Hardship Application form is located here.

If you are unable to access your account, please contact us so we can assist you in recovering your access and help you submit your Hardship application.

You can also submit a Hardship application in writing by sending an email to repayments@smb.nz, a letter to PO Box 1196, City Centre, Christchurch 8140, or by fax to 03 343 1043.

Upon receiving a Financial Hardship Application, SMB is bound by legislation to adhere to certain timeframes. SMB will:

• Acknowledge the receipt of an application within 5 working days of receiving it. 

• This may be an electronic acknowledgement.

• Request further information, if needed, within 10 working days of the application's receipt.

• This may be an electronic request, such as an email.

• Provide a decision to the applicant within 20 working days of the application’s receipt, or if we have requested further information, then we will provide a decision within 10 working days after receiving all the required further information and 20 working days after making the request for further information, whichever is the later.

• This may be by both electronic means and ordinary post.

Free Confidential Budgeting Advice

If you are in need of financial advice or budgeting services, you can visit our Important Borrower Info link on our website or contact Money Talks.

MoneyTalks

There are community services that can help you manage your finances.

MoneyTalks is a free financial helpline offering advice and support from trained financial mentors, and they can also connect you with services in your community. You can contact MoneyTalks from Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm, and Saturday from 10am to 2pm.

• Freephone: 0800 345 123

• FreeText: 4029

• Email: help@moneytalks.co.nz

• MoneyTalks helpline — with free online chat service.

For alternative options for assistance with financial mentoring and budgeting, visit www.sorted.org.nz. If you have been affected by COVID-19, Inland Revenue or Work and Income may be able to help.

FAQs

What happens with interest accrual?
It's important to note that interest will continue to accrue throughout this period unless a special waiver has been applied, which you will be notified of when we are assessing your hardship application.

What happens to my normal payments whilst I am submitting a hardship application?
Your payments will continue as normal until we have all the necessary information to make a decision on your application. If you have missed one or more payments, collections activities (texts, emails, etc.) will not stop until we have all the information required to make a decision and provide relief. 

What if my Hardship application was declined?
To be approved for Hardship, the hardship must have been unforeseeable at the time you took out the loan. We will require proof of this, which is requested via the application form. If your hardship application was declined and you disagree with the decision, please contact us to discuss further so we can work together.