Important information about our business

Cedrus Finance Limited holds a Class 2 Financial Advice Provider licence issued by the FMA to provide financial advice services. Cedrus Finance Limited’s Financial Services Provider Number is FSP1004596.

Nature and Scope of Financial Advice Services

Any financial advice provided on our behalf will take into account only the information you have given us about your particular needs, financial situation, or goals.

Our fees

For residential mortgages, we are usually paid a commission by the banks or lenders for our services on behalf of you. However, from time to time, the lender we recommend may not pay for our services. Therefore, we will discuss and agree on the actual fees with you before we proceed and explain how they are payable. In most cases, any costs for our fees will be added to the loan amount. It is usually a percentage-based fee for initial advice ongoing according to your loan amount.

It is also important to know that, should you terminate your relationship with the lender, within 28 months of the loan being drawn down, and the lender has paid us a fee, then that lender may request the repayment of all or part of that from us (Called a “Clawback”). Should this occur, we will invoice you directly for our time and effort at a reasonable level, with this being lower of $2,500 (being 10 hours @ $250 per hour) or the actual clawback amount.

Other costs

Where other costs are incurred in the process of providing our advice and services to you, you will be liable for these costs. However, we will agree on all additional costs with you prior to incurring them.

Commissions

For services in relation to loan products, commissions may be paid by the product provider as follows:

Conflicts of interest or other incentives

We are here for our clients and to advise you as best we can. Your interests are our priority although we do have business relationships with product providers also. From time to time our product providers assist us with funding so we can bring our advisers together for conferences and professional development training. (Or other non-monetary benefits such as a bottle of wine or event tickets)

How we manage any conflicts of interest

To ensure our advisers prioritise our clients’ interests:

• We follow an advice process that ensures our recommendations are made appropriately, based on clients’ goals and circumstances.
• All our advisers undergo annual training about how to manage conflicts of interest.
• We maintain registers of conflicts of interest and the gifts and incentives we receive. These registers are monitored regularly, and additional training is provided as required.
• We undertake an annual independent Compliance Assurance Review.

Our duties and obligations to you

We are bound by the duties of the Financial Markets Conduct Act (431I, 431K, 431L and 431M) to:

• Meet the standards of competence, knowledge, and skill set out in the Code of Conduct
• Give priority to the clients’ interests, and
• Exercise care, diligence and skill, and
• Meet the standards of ethical behaviour, conduct, and client care set out in the Code of Conduct.

Our Internal complaints process

If you have a problem, concern, or complaint about any part of our advice or service, please tell us so that we can try to fix the problem.

Our internal complaints manager is Zheng (Nicklaus) Li who can be reached via email at nicklaus@cedrusfinance.co.nz. You will get reply within 2 days.

Our internal complaints handling process is as follows:

1.  We will consider your complaint and let you know how we intend to resolve it. Where possible, we try to resolve your complaint immediately.
2. If we are unable to resolve your complaint immediately, we will acknowledge your complaint within 2 business days. We may contact you to get further information about your complaint.
3. We aim to resolve complaints within 7 working days of receiving them. If we need more time to investigate your complaint, we will let you know when you can expect to receive a response to your complaint
4. We will contact you by phone, email or letter to let you know whether we can resolve your complaint and how we propose to do so.

Our external complaints process

If we cannot agree on how to fix the issue, or if you decide not to use the internal complaints scheme, you can contact our external disputes resolution scheme: Financial Services Complaints (FSCL). This service will cost you nothing and will help us resolve any complaints.

You can contact Financial Services Complaints (FSCL) at:

Website: https://fscl.org.nz/
Address: FSCL, PO Box 5967, Wellington 6140
Phone number:  0800 347 257
Email address: complaints@fscl.org.nz