Important Information — Solidity Financial Services

Disclosure

Our contact details

Phone: 020 4013 8252
Address: 49a Scenic Drive, Hillpark, Auckland 2102
Email: admin@solidity.co.nz
Website: www.solidity.co.nz

Nature and scope of the financial advice given

Our advisers are able to provide you with financial advice relating to your personal insurances and home loan. We also provide financial advice for business owners on Key Person Insurance, Shareholder Protection and Business Continuation.

We are able to provide financial advice from the following product providers:

Life and disability insurances
Partners Life, AIA, Chubb, Asteron Life, NIB and Fidelity Life

Health Insurances
Partners Life, NIB, AIA

Business owners insurances
Partners Life, AIA, Chubb and Fidelity Life

Personal and Home Loans
ANZ, ASAP Property Finance Specialists, ASB, Select Asset Finance, Avanti Finance, Basecorp Finance, BNZ, CFML Loans, Cressida Capital, First Mortgage Trust, Liberty Financial, Pepper Money, Resimac, SBS Bank, Select Home Loans, Southern Cross Partners, Sovereign, The Cooperative Bank and Westpac

Out of scope

No Advice on Your KiwiSaver
We are unable to give you advice on the use of your KiwiSaver retirement fund(s) to partially fund your home purchase. If you plan to make use of your KiwiSaver fund(s) as part of the mortgage process, we recommend that you seek advice from a Financial Adviser who specialises in investment planning and/or another suitably qualified professional.

Referral for Fire and General Insurance
We will not provide advice on fire and general insurances. However, we can refer you to a financial adviser who specialises in those areas if you would like advice on those products.

Our commitment to you

Our advisers have a number of obligations that we must comply with. These include adhering to a Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services, legal duties prescribed by law and a requirement to meet certain standards of competence, knowledge and skill.

In addition to the above, we will:

Act in your best interests when providing financial advice.
Ensure that the financial advice is suitable for you.
Help you understand the advice process and any complex terminology.
Exercise care, diligence and skill in providing you with a financial adviser service.
Provide our financial advice in writing.
Maintain accurate records and keep them safe and secure.
Provide our services in a timely manner.
Keep your personal information confidential and restricted to only the parties who require it as part of the application process.

Your obligations

As the borrower or applicant, it is important that you provide accurate and timely information. You have a duty of disclosure to advise us of any significant matters or changes that the lender or insurer should be made aware of before making their decision.

Timeframes

You will need to allocate approximately one (1) to two (2) hours for the first financial advice meeting. Several meetings may be required for the entire application and advice process to be completed.

We will contact you from time to time to see if your circumstances have changed or if we can be of any further assistance to you. We also encourage you to contact us if your situation changes and you require any changes to your loan or insurance.

How we get paid

Most of the time, our services are completely free. That’s because instead of being paid by you, we receive revenue from our product suppliers like banks or insurance providers.

We feel it's important you understand how we are paid, after all we ask the exact questions to you when applying for a home loan.

Our service to you includes understanding your requirements and personal situation, analysing the options available, researching the suitability of the products and/or Product Providers, and providing you with our written recommendations.

Solidity Financial Services and our advisers are paid in the form of a commission by the mortgage lenders and insurance providers if you take out mortgage or insurance following our advice.

Insurance Commissions
The commission is between 30% and 240% of the first year’s premiums of your policy. The amount depends on which insurance company and insurance policy you choose. Solidity also receives a commission between 3% and 20% of the premium for each year the policy remains in force.

Mortgage Commissions
The commissions are between 0.55% and 0.90% of the value of the mortgage. The amount will depend upon the bank and the type of mortgage that you choose. We may also receive a commission of between 0% and 0.15% of the remaining balance each year.

Referral Partners
From time to time, Solidity Financial Services may refer clients to third-party professionals and service providers, such as lawyers, valuers, builders, accountants, and other specialists, where we believe their services may assist you.

If we refer you to Tower Insurance and you take out an insurance policy, Solidity Financial Services may receive an ongoing commission of 10% of the premium you pay. This commission is calculated on the insurance premium only and does not include government levies, such as the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Levy, the Natural Hazards Commission (NHC) Levy, or any other applicable taxes or levies. We are happy to provide you with an estimate of the commission we will receive upon request. We do not receive any commission, referral fee, or other financial benefit for referrals to lawyers, builders, valuers, or other professional service providers. If we receive any other financial benefit in connection with a referral, we will disclose this to you before you proceed.

Fees and Expenses

Mortgage:

Most of the time, you will not be charged a fee for our mortgage advice. We are usually paid by the lender through an upfront commission, an ongoing (trail) commission, or a mix of both. These commissions are based on the size and type of your loan.

Broker Fee
In some situations, we may charge a one-off Broker Fee for the work we complete on your behalf.

This fee is separate from any commission we may receive.
The amount of the fee will depend on the complexity of your application and the time required to prepare and submit it. In the event a fee is charged, the fee will be up to 1% of the loan amount, plus GST.
If a Broker Fee applies, we will advise you of the amount before we begin the work, we will invoice you 7 days prior to settlement with payment due on loan settlement.

Commission Clawback
Lenders may require us to repay part of our upfront commission if your loan is repaid or refinanced within 27 months of settlement.

If this happens, we may charge you a fee of up to $3,000 + GST to recover our costs.

This amount reflects the average time spent on an application (around 12 hours) at our hourly rate of $250 + GST.
You will not be charged this fee if we were given the opportunity to arrange your next loan but were unable to obtain approval.

Withdrawn Applications
If you decide not to proceed after we have obtained a conditional or unconditional approval for you, we may charge an administration fee of $1,000 + GST, plus $200 + GST per hour for the time spent (typically around 10 hours).

These fees are not linked to any commission we may receive.

Insurance:

NIB policies
Providing that you maintain any NIB policies that you undertake through our advisers for a minimum of 24 months, then NIB will pay an upfront service fee in relation to providing ongoing advice.

However, this commission will be clawed back by the NIB if the policy is cancelled in the first 24 months.

We require all clients to agree to a Service Fee payment of $850.00 plus GST if they cancel their NIB policy within 24 months of the policy being issued.

How we manage any conflicts of interest

We have an obligation to act in the best interests of clients when making a recommendation. Should any actual or potential conflicts of interest arise during the advice process, we undertake to bring any such conflict of interest to your attention so that you may assess our advice objectively. At present, we have identified the following conflicts of interest:

Product Provider Commission:
If you accept and act on our advice, we will receive a commission. Conversely, if you do not accept and act upon our advice, we will not receive a commission.
Performance Based Remuneration:
Our remuneration is based on the total amount you end up borrowing (i.e., the more you borrow, the more remuneration received by us).

To ensure that we prioritise your interests above our own, we follow an advice process that ensures our recommendations are made on the basis of your individual goals and circumstances.

We complete annual training about how to appropriately manage conflicts of interest. Solidity Financial Services and/or the lender or the provider periodically undertake a compliance review of our advisers’ advice process.

Solidity Financial Services also engage an independent compliance consultancy firm to conduct ongoing independent compliance reviews and audits.

How we collect, use and share your information

Solidity Financial Services complies with the Privacy Act 2020.

In order to assemble your loan or insurance application and determine your eligibility, we will require certain personal and financial information from you.

The information will be made available to your Financial Adviser, lender, insurer and any other necessary third parties such as credit reporting agencies, government agencies, regulatory authorities, banks and non-bank lenders.

At times, we may be allowed or otherwise obliged to disclose your personal information by law (e.g., under Court Orders or Statutory Notices pursuant to taxation laws). We may also disclose personal or business information to other financial institutions and organisations at their request if you seek to obtain products and/or services from them and you have provided permission.

There may be times when we need to collect personal information about you from other sources. When this happens, the Privacy Act 2020 requires us to take reasonable steps to let you know what information we have collected, why we need it, how we will use it, and who it may be shared with.

Personal and business information may also be disclosed to:

Professionals such as solicitors, accountants, insurance advisers and/or valuers when a referral is made at your request.
If we intend to sell our Financial Advice business, to any prospective purchaser of our business.
The Financial Markets Authority and/or independent compliance reviewer as required for monitoring or compliance purposes.

From time to time, this information may be updated and/or changed. We undertake to advise you of material changes to any of the items or products/services noted above via email and/or via post.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Solidity Financial Services may use artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies to support certain business and administrative functions. These tools may assist with tasks such as preparing documents, organising information, summarising content, and improving the efficiency of our internal processes.

AI is used as a support tool only and does not replace the professional judgement of our advisers. Every recommendation and piece of financial advice is considered and approved by a qualified adviser, taking into account your individual needs, goals, and circumstances.

We are responsible for all advice and communications provided to our clients, regardless of whether technology has been used to assist in their preparation. AI is not relied upon to make financial advice decisions on your behalf.

We are committed to protecting your personal information. Any use of AI or other technology is undertaken in accordance with our privacy policy, and we take reasonable steps to ensure that client information is handled securely and responsibly.

If you have a problem, concern, or complaint about any part of the financial advice you have received from us, you may contact us using any of the following means: in writing, by telephone or by email.

Here are our contact details.

Company Name: Solidity Financial Services Limited
Attention: The Complaints Officer
Address: 49a Scenic Drive, Hillpark, Auckland
Telephone: 020 4013 8252
Email address: admin@solidity.co.nz
Website: www.solidity.co.nz

Our Complaint Handling Process

When we receive a complaint, we will consider it following our internal complaints process:

We will consider your complaint and let you know how we intend to resolve it. We may need to contact you to get further information about your complaint.
We aim to resolve complaints within 15 working days of receiving them. If we can’t, we will contact you within that time to let you know we need more time to consider your complaint.
We will contact you by phone or email to let you know whether we can resolve your complaint and how we propose to do so.
If we can’t resolve your complaint, or you aren’t satisfied with the way we propose to do so, you can contact Financial Services Complaints Limited.

Dispute resolution process

If our internal complaints process does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can contact our external independent dispute resolution scheme. This service is free and may help investigate or resolve the complaint.

We are a member of the Financial Services Complaints Limited’s approved dispute resolution scheme. You can contact the Financial Services Complaints Limited at:

Company Name: Financial Services Complaints Limited
Address: Level 4, Sybase House, 101 Lambton Quay, Wellington 6011
Postal Address: P O Box 5967, Wellington 6140
Telephone 0800 347 257 (freephone if within New Zealand) or +64 4 472 3725 (if calling outside New Zealand)
Email address: complaints@fscl.org.nz
Website: http://www.fscl.org.nz/

Availability of Information

This information can be provided in hardcopy upon your request by contacting us at admin@solidity.co.nz

V2 | Updated July 2026