St George - Amplify Business Credit Card

Self employed SB owner/director, Pty Ltd Co. Current business accounts are with St George and have an existing StG business CC, 6K limit. Wanted 2 extra cards for staff and came across their Amplify Business CC with points! Intended to apply for 10K limit. The CC is used for business purchases, convenience, PayPal and the bank's buyer protection. Usually paid off immediately.

During the StG ABCC application I came across requests for lots of personal finance questions, Wages, Mortgage, Property, Personal Tax, Other assets, How many years... etc. Given that I am soon to refinance and extract equity from the PPOR for the purpose of non business related property investing, became concerned at how this may affect my credit rating and cancelled the application.

Anyone have any ideas if such an application for a business CC would affect my personal credit rating? It's not obvious but I expect I will be agreeing to a sort of Directors Guarantee. And a bit cranky at the lack of disclosure.

Thanks in advance.

 

Would suggest they would have read out or provided a privacy statement which would have noted a credit enquiry.

Did you think they wouldn't complete a credit check on you before offering you a credit limit?

 

Hi Brady, application was online, may have missed it while scanning the T&C's. Certainly not made obvious up front.

I and the Co are separate entities. Debt would be against the business. StG have my business banking deets going back 17years. So I would like to think a credit check on myself to be irrelevant. No?

 

You would definitely be required to provide a personal / directors guarantee. As such would find its way onto your personal credit file as an enquiry and if taken up probably needs to be included in your liabilities just like if it was in your own name.

If you are using business profit and any other addbacks (besides wages paid to yourself) to help service your personal purpose loans then any business loans and credit limits would be included in servicing by most lenders anyway. If you are just using the income you paid yourself then you can sometimes exclude the business debts from the servicing calculations.... lender permitting.

 

Hi Marty, Thanks for your input. I do go to a fair amount of trouble to keep the business and personal accounts / expenses etc. separate.

Had another look at the T&C's No mention of personal finances or personal credit file in 55 pages. That I can find.

Suppose I'll pass and just get extra cards on my current CC.

The best thing is that before I came a'lurking around here I would have been none the wiser!

 

They would have pinged your file for sure (in the privacy section)........My bold added

Credit information
We may:

• obtain credit information about you from a credit reporting body to enable us to assess your creditworthiness;
• exchange personal information and credit information about you with other credit providers to assess your application and creditworthiness and to notify them of any defaults by you;
• give or obtain a banker's opinion about you.

The privacy page of our website stgeorge.com.au includes a "Statement of Notifiable Matters". These are matters you should be aware of in relation to the use and disclosure of your credit information. This statement includes:

• details of the credit reporting bodies to which we are likely to disclose your credit information, the types of credit information we may give them and how this information will be used;
• your rights over your credit information, including how you can access and correct your information and make complaints;
• your rights to direct a credit reporting body to limit the use of your information for direct marketing purposes and what protections are available if you believe you are a victim of fraud; and
• information about our Credit Reporting Policy.

You can call us on 13 33 30 or visit us in branch for a hard copy of the Statement of Notifiable Matters.

 

Hi Marty, Are we looking at the same web page? Page 8 of the linked T&C's PDF?

3. Privacy
If there are any additional cardholders, each of you agrees that each person may
use the card account and have access to card account information without any
other cardholder’s consent.

I suspect not. I did find that extract somewhere. Probably need a lawyer for a CC application now. LOL!

 

Did you ask them what is the process to swap the existing card facility to the new one? So no increase in liability.
Some lenders require a new app to do this, some don't.
Do they allow additional cards for staff under the umbrella of the main card/limit so you don't need a whole new one just for them? This could be an option if they allow this and it suited what you're requiring it for.
And yes disclosure is always a pain and in very small print, but very rarely do you find a lender who will not take some sort of guarantee from Directors for business lending especially one of the majors (STG being owned by Westpac). They want to be able to link the debt back to someone should the company be unable to pay.
Sorry am ex-business banker here so trying to offer some alternatives for you but don't know their product suite specifically.

 

Hi Ros, Application was online so no opportunity to ask questions. My current thinking is to apply for extra cards on the existing CC account. Was just a little miffed that the T&C's I read didn't fully explain my personal liability and the implications for future borrowing. Learnt my lesson now.

 

Even if the lender didn't hit your credit file - this would still impact your ability to borrow in the future. The lenders you use to make purchases/finance thereafter are the important bit, not the credit card provider - they will dictate how they treat any liabilities within a business.

Some lenders will treat business effectively as an extension of personal debt, some will complete ignore and others will do something in between. I always encourage my clients to have a quick chat with me before taking on any new finance to ensure they don't snooker themselves through what might be considered a trivial or small application.

 

^Wise advice. Thanks Corey.