Mortgage commissions to be shared with customer

By

Published on

Get some of your money back

Here's a way to claw back part of the commission you pay when you take out a home or investment property loan. The home loan referral service, Refunds Direct, says it will share the commission with a customer - around $1000 for an average home loan or $2000 for a commercial loan. If customers go directly to a lender, they are giving hard-earned money away, says Refunds Direct. (www.refunds direct.com.au).

Help fight cancer

The parent trap

The 2012 Australian Women's Health Diary is an important fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Institute of Australia. Every dollar from the sale of the diary helps fight the disease. It is available for $14.95 from newsagents, CBA branches and selected Woolworths supermarkets from October 5. Order it online at www.bcia.org.au.

Self-managed boom

The surge in new self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) continued with 33,106 set up in the year to the end of June 2011, compared with 29,609 the previous year, according to Australian Taxation Office statistics. There are now 456,472 self-managed funds with 867,863 members. They dropped their investment in shares from $143 billion to $139 billion and increased their allocation to term deposits from $111 billion to $114 billion.

The ATO found that 19% of people setting up an SMSF had an income between $20,000 and $40,000 while 18% of new fund members had assessable income of $20,000 or below.

Term deposits rise

ING Direct, the online bank, is making its term deposits available through over 3000 Australia Post outlets. Since January 2008, term deposits have doubled in size to $234 billion, well above the overall growth in the household deposits market.

Get stories like this in our newsletters.

Related Stories