Briefs: La Trobe launches foreign investor mortgage, mortgage prepayments level high, NAB taps US ma

Banking Day staff
  • La Trobe Financial has launched a non-resident loan to cater to foreign investors buying property in Australia. The loan will be available to fully verified self-employed non-resident applicants. It uses La Trobe's Lite-Doc verification methodology.
  • Online lender loans.com.au reported that 82 per cent of its customers were ahead of their loan repayment schedule. The company's managing director, Marie Mortimer, said borrowers were taking advantage of low interest rates by finding a cheap loan and paying down the principal as fast as they could. She said most were using a mortgage offset to have their salaries paid into their mortgage accounts.
  • National Australia Bank has raised A$205 million in the United States private placement market to finance an Australian wind farm - the first time an Australian renewable energy asset has been financed in the US market. Hallett Hill wind farm in South Australia will have 34 turbines and a 71.4 megawatt capacity. NAB claims to be the country's largest debt financier of renewable energy projects.
  • The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has banned a Victorian finance broker, Meenakshi Devi Callychurn, from engaging in credit activities for five years and cancelled the credit licence of her company Unique Mortgage Services Pty Ltd. Callychurn was banned after submitting compliance certificates with false responses and allowing another banned finance broker to exercise control over the business.