Thoughts about Athena?

Morphio25 on 10/07/2022 - 08:53

Have been approved for a refinance with Athena. Wanting to hear from other OzB members their opinions about Athena and any experiences they have with them.

1) Their offset account is not covered by the FCS. I've only got a small amount to go in offset but losing that amount would be crushing too. Having said that they have some pretty big names backing them so one would think the risk is fairly low but that can change at the drop of a hat too I guess.

2) Their contract seems pretty one-sided and even seems to include terms around the offset that pretty much mean they can do whatever they like with the funds in it or even deny me withdrawing those funds should they so choose. Anyone here have any experience with Athena enforcing certain terms of the contract seemingly out of the blue?

May add other dot points in as I read through the contract.

Cheers

Financial Home Loan Loan

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Comments

  • onetwothreefour on 10/07/2022 - 08:57

    Maybe have a read of some previous threads

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/673396

    • Morphio25 on 10/07/2022 - 09:33

      Cheers. Hadn't found that one from the search I already did.

  • Tony-Abbott on 10/07/2022 - 11:19

    You are just reading into it all too much.

    In the real world they are fine and probably one of the best out there.

  • sghetti on 10/07/2022 - 11:22
    +1

    Applied through both Athena & Tic:Toc Home Loans. Tic:Toc got back to me first, products are pretty identical except for a couple of minor things.

    1. Tic:Toc's offset is covered by FCS as it's ADI
    2. Tic:Toc's offset comes with debit cards to use
    3. Tic:Toc's offset costs $10 per month. Their rate is slightly cheaper though so comparison rate is about the same

    I ended up going with Tic:Toc because of the concerns around FCS and debit card features. Plus I've worked with a few people who now work over there, the online application process was very easy, Athena asked us to upload documents again and again for varying reasons. Tic:Toc called to confirm 1 detail and had loan docs over within an hour, that was pretty much within 24 hours from applying.

    In terms of transaction facilities the differences:

    1. Tic:Toc have BPay facilities for the offset
    2. Athena has Fast Payments for the offset
    3. Tic:Toc have scheduled payments for the offset (bpay and other transfers)

    I'll be working around the Fast Payment issue with Tic:Toc by having debits cards linked up in Beem and perform transfers out via the debit cards to a transaction account at UpBank to do fast payment (for a Gumtree or other payment that I need to perform quickly). So I have all of my payment facilities with Tic:Toc.

    With Athena I'd have to send Fast payments out to send BPay payments, which is annoying with bills because I like to schedule them and forget.

  • CodeXD on 10/07/2022 - 12:56

    athena deals

    athena forum posts

  • Night Wachman on 11/07/2022 - 20:09
    +1

    Been with Athena for 4 years and they are really good.

    Regarding the concern about your offset, there’s nothing to worry about. If they go bust, the worst that can happen is the money cancels out a corresponding amount of your loan.

    • sghetti on 12/07/2022 - 12:10

      Not exactly, as per one of the links above what COULD happen is when the loan is taken on by someone else the offset COULD be treated like redraw. So once moved across to the new lender you could lose all access to those funds. As per the example, you have a loan of $250,000 with an offset amount of $50,000. At the new lender,your loan COULD become $200,000. You'd have no transactional funds to use if that's your all-in-one bucket for bills etc.

      If that's all of your "savings" to use for transactions etc. you could be in a lot of trouble. If lenders started to go under this scenario could be a little more likely to unfold, if property prices fell, lenders could be looking to reduce the liabilities on the property. Your borrowing capacity to refinance in a situation like that could be a lot less too.

      All of this would be pretty unlikely though as most of these lenders target "safer" borrowers will a much lower LVR.

  • Night Wachman on 12/07/2022 - 23:44

    That’s what I said. You just said the same thing I said but in a lot more words

  • Night Wachman on 12/07/2022 - 23:48

    Here is another thread where similar issues were discussed https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/700034

  • Morphio25 on 14/07/2022 - 10:52

    Interesting development - they've jacked their rates up by 0.65% rather than 0.5% which would be in line with the last RBA rate rise.

    Queried them about it and got a pretty generic looking reply.

    I understand your frustration, it's not that we wanted to but it was something that needed to be done I'm afraid 😣. Our cost of funds is driven by more than the Cash Rate, and these funding market costs have spiked significantly in recent months.

    We have passed on many extra rate drops to you over time and held out for as long as we can to avoid needing to increase our rates to cover these new additional costs, but we simply can’t absorb them any longer. Some lenders are hiding their rate increases with existing customers whilst offering great rates to new customers. We don’t do that. But we do need to continue to run a sustainable business and make sure you’re still saving as much money as you can.

    This means for your loan that your rate will increase, you should receive an e-mail soon in regards to what your rate will change to and what your repayments will look like.

    It'll be interesting to see what other lenders do.

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