Athena Home Loans Questions & Answers

Hey Charles, so sorry for our late reply. We only just saw this now. As you've said, Athena is not an ADI (Authorised Deposit-taking Institution), which means that your offset is not a separate deposit account and is not covered by the government’s deposit guarantee. In the very unlikely event that anything should happen to Athena, your loan would be serviced by our alternate service provider. You would never lose the value of your offset. Rest assured, Athena has some of the biggest backers in the country like Macquarie Bank, Host Plus, Australian Super just to name a few.

Hey Cez P, Super sorry for the late response. Our investors and us think it is extremely unlikely that Athena will go under, we have big backing and are here to stay. In the very unlikely event that anything should happen to Athena, your loan would be serviced by our alternate service provider. And in the very unlikely event that this is unable to continue, your offset balance may be used to reduce your outstanding loan balance to Athena. You would never lose the value of your offset. But like we said - this is extremely unlikely! Here’s lowdown of Athena’s offset account: external link .

Let us know if you have any further questions!

Cheers, Jasmine and the Athena Team

Hi Di and Mike, we're super disappointed to hear some reviews have made you feel this way about us. We take all feedback, good or bad, seriously and are always working to improve our processes so we can give customers like you outstanding service. We would love to chat and answer any questions or concerns you might have. You can definitely call us before you start a formal application. Our number is 13 35 35. If you wanted to run a few numbers before the call, you can do so by grabbing a quick quote at external link . It only takes a few mins and you won't get credit-checked. Cheers, Wendy from the Athena Team

Hey Mark, we’re super sorry to hear about your poor experience so far. Can you send us an email to hello@athena.com.au referencing this post on Productview.com.au so we can get in touch asap about your application? In the meantime, here’s our answers to your questions!

- We do offer fixed rate loans for 1, 2 and 3 year periods. Check out all our fixed rates and more info at external link 

- Thank you for your feedback regarding our website and Home Hub. We are always making improvements. We’ve got your feedback and will be taking it onboard.

- Check out our T&Cs which covers all the basics of our financing policy: external link  . We are super sorry we have asked you to provide documents multiple times. We’ll look into this for you once we hear from you about your application ID.

- We want all our customers to have the best customer service and it’s always super disappointing to hear about customers who haven’t had a great experience. We take all feedback, good or bad, onboard so we can improve. We have to assess all applications against our lending criteria and sometimes this means we can’t help some Aussies out. We want all Aussies to save money on their loan. Our Athena Select service means that even if you don't tick every Athena box, we'll still help you find a better home loan, no matter what!

Let us know if you have any further questions

Hey Belinda, thanks for reaching out. Are you looking to refinance or purchase property? After you submit your application, one of the first things we’ll do is complete a formal credit check. Let us know if you have any further questions! You can contact us via email at hello@athena.com.au or send us an SMS to 0429 333 555. Cheers, Athena Team

Hey Willy, on average from quote to settlement, it’s taken our existing customers 6 weeks to switch over. It could take shorter or longer depending on your scenario but we will always keep you in the loop. Could you please send us an email to hello@athena.com.au with your APP ID, mentioning that you've posted on Product Review and we will look into your app asap. Cheers, Wendy

Stick to the banks thats all i can say.

Hey there, we are so sorry to hear you're not loving your Athena experience. We want all our customers to love us and are really disappointed this has not been the case for you. We want to look into this further so we can get it right for you ASAP. Can you please email us at hello@athena.com.au with “ProductReview” as the subject line so that we can look into making things right for you! We want to make sure every customer has the best experience. Thanks, Rachel

Hey Dean, as per our last response, please get in touch so we can identify you and look into what happened. Every customer is unique and not just a number at Athena, and each experience personalised to your situation. We take customer experience very seriously so would love if you could get in touch so we can find out where we can improve. Thanks, Rachel

Hey Tracy, We need to complete a physical valuation so we can have a more accurate valuation of your property. Some properties only require desktop valuations (meaning that the valuation is received from a central database), but in some cases, a physical valuation is needed when there is a low confidence rating with the desktop valuation. We respect the privacy of all our customers and can assure you that all our physical valuations are completed by certified, independent valuers! We know that Josh has been in touch to explain why need to conduct a physical valuation, but please let us know if you have any further questions! :)

I would report this to the ombudsman this is very unusual for them to do this. The property appraisal is enough.

Hey ripoffsspreets, any lender can conduct physical valuations in addition to desktop valuations and is not unusual. Physical valuations are done if there’s not enough information about the property online and it helps ensure we provide you with the most accurate decision for your application. RateCity goes into detail about all the different types of valuations, you can learn about them here: external link . Cheers, Wendy

Hi Eva. I am only a recent Customer to Athena but my experience with them has been great so far. Their whole application process, and then follow up emails and phone calls, were very easy to do, and the people on the other end of the phone are based here in Australia, which is a nice change at the moment compared to other companies. I would advise you to make an application and discuss with them your financial situation and that you are on Jobseeker. I would assume that if you have a good credit history with your existing loans, and that you can prove with your financial statements that you can afford the loan, that they would then hopefully consider you for an Athena Loan. At the end of the day, Financial Institutions will only lend to you what they know you can afford to pay back. They require you to submit to them all your expenses, and they double check your answers against your credit card and bank statements, and as in my case, follow up with a phone call to discuss if something is not straight forward. Their excellent interest rates and the ethics behind their company is what has drawn me to them. Treating all customers the same, regardless if they are a new customer or an old customer. If you decide to make an application, if you would like a PROMO Code to get a $250 cashback if your loan is approved, my referral code is ATH- 85390. Just include this in your application at the "Review your application" page. Good luck, and I hope you can become a happy Athena Customer like myself. Cheers.

Thanks Janine, well I would like Athena to answer this question, but thank you so much for your info, very helpful.

Hi Eva, we're so sorry we are only just replying now! We hope one of our Loan Rangers was able to answer your question earlier if you reached out privately. In regards to your questions, unfortunately we cannot include Job Seekers into assessment of an application. Cheers, Wendy

Hey Ramendra, we are super sorry you still haven't heard back from us regarding your application. We have escalated your application and one of our Loan Experts will be in touch with you soon. Cheers, Wendy

Just an addition to the frustration of applying for a loan from Athena. The loan was escalated as per Wendy's reply above. The loans expert contacted me and asked for some more documents which I promptly sent across. Another 5 days later I was told we can do this (by a loan expert) and now its being sent to an assessor to be finalized. I just received a call from the assessor and was told "sorry we cant do this". It took two months for Athena to look at the documents and that's after I wrote in this forum. I have a settlement in mid February and where do I go now. If I was told this in November then I had a lot of time to seek elsewhere. I was told the reason for not proceeding with this mortgage was because the industry you work in has been impacted by the pandemic and we cant take the risk. Is there any industry that hasn't been impacted somehow? I have sent prove that everything is back to normal and provided payslip to prove it. This is sheer discrimination for probably writing to the forum. I was simply asking for 25% only and putting the property as security. That's just not good enough from a company that sings their own praises.

Hey Niroj, we do not have an offset at this stage. We are working to launch an offset feature later this year. Cheers, Athena Team

Hi Charmaine, not at all! We will run a formal valuation for your property after you submit your application. We won't charge you for this as we have zero Athena fees :) If you need to get an estimated value for your property, you can grab a free property report at external link . Cheers, Wendy

Hey Kathy, with transfers from your bank to Athena, the timings will depend on your bank. Best to check with them on this. For your Athena redraw requests, they take 1-2 business days to process. If you make a request before 1pm on a business day, the transfer will be completed on the same day. If the request is made after 1pm on a business day, it will be completed on the next business day. For bank transfers of over $20k, this would be completed over 2 business days. If you send us an email to hello@athena.com.au, one of our Loan Experts can reach out to chat about your transfer request. We agree that redraw requests shouldn't take this long and are working on improvements to speed it up. Please stay tuned for updates on this! Cheers, Wendy

Hi Jess.. I was told 2-3 weeks but I received loan confirmation within 4 working days (my loan application was put through as priority due to short time frame on my behalf and Athena did everything they could to make it happen) . the Athena team send an email and text message for every step of your loan process to keep you informed ..

Hi Rahul, Mine took 2 months for them to look at and that was only after I wrote in this forum. I have the same story with the calls.