Using Access Seeker to verify liabilities prior to submission

Access Seeker can be used for all applicant types, including:

• Individuals
• Directors of company loans
• Individual(s) as trustee for Trusts.

Before generating an Access Seeker Credit Report, you’ll be prompted to confirm you’ve met the conditions of use. These include:

1. You’ve obtained written consent from the selected applicants to request their credit information and confirmed you’ll retain these consents for audit and verification purposes. This may be part of your Applicant Privacy Consent Form.
2. You’ve read and agreed to the Equifax Terms of Supply.
3. You’ve read and signed the Authorised Access Seeker Supplementary Terms and have retained this for audit and verification purposes. This only needs to be signed prior to your first use of Access Seeker.

For each applicant, you’ll be able to view the full Equifax One Score credit report. For our credit assessment, we’ll also request a separate Equifax One Score for each applicant, so you can have confidence you’re viewing the most up to date version of the applicant’s credit file.

See our Broker Help Centre article for more information on how to read an Equifax One Score credit report.

The ‘Credit Summary’ tab provides a summarised version of the information available in the credit report.

The ‘Verification’ tab provides an interactive tool to make it easier for you to confirm and verify the liabilities to be included in the application. Here you can complete the liabilities matching process.

1. On the Verification tab, all open liabilities on the applicant’s credit report will be listed under the ‘Financial Passport’ column, including:

• Liability type (e.g. home loan)
• Creditor name (e.g. Macquarie Bank)
• Account BSB and account number
• Limit (e.g. $450,000)
• Loan term expiry (e.g. 30/3/2050)

2. Review the list from the credit report and select the liabilities that need to be included in the assessment of the application
3. Once selected, click Accept suggested updates
4. A pop-up window will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to proceed with the following for the liabilities selected:

• Where the liability already existed on the application, it’ll be overridden/updated with the credit report’s data, or
• If the liability didn’t exist on the application, it’ll be added to the ‘Financials’ tab for further review.

5. To implement changes, select Accept suggested updates again. In the table, you’ll now see the updated information in the ‘Application’ column and a green ‘verified’ badge will appear.

Once you’ve confirmed the liabilities in the prior step, the ‘Financials’ tab will be pre-populated with the data. In the ‘Liabilities’ table, you’ll see a green ‘verified’ badge. This confirms that liability’s data matches the credit report. Where ‘Suggestion’ is noted, you’ll need to take further action.

Verified liabilities

You’ll need to add data to each liability, as per usual processes. This may include current balance, repayment amount and frequency. If you make changes to key information (e.g. the credit limit), the ‘verified’ badge will be removed as it no longer matches the credit report data. You’ll need to provide further explanation in the broker notes why the application doesn’t match the report (e.g. the limit of the credit card will be reduced as part of this application).

‘Suggestion’ liabilities

In the ‘Liabilities’ table, if a liability exists on the credit report that hasn’t been verified by you, it will appear as a ‘Suggestion’. This may occur if:

• you’ve missed selecting the liability initially
• your customer has closed a facility, but it hasn’t been updated on their credit report, or
• your customer intends to close the facility at settlement, so you didn’t initially include it.

If you choose not to include liabilities noted on the credit report in the application or change details of a liability (e.g. the credit limit), ensure you provide either additional documentation (e.g. a letter confirming a facility has been closed) or further detail in the broker notes.

Completing this step, typically will allow us to assess the application without following up for further information.

Once you select ‘Get Started’, a pop-up window will appear where you need to agree to the conditions of use. If you haven’t entered sufficient data for the applicant (e.g. date of birth or full name), a validation will appear alerting you to provide specific data.

See Requesting an Access Seeker Credit Report to check you’ve entered all required data fields.