News

The ADF has again made the decision to review its interest rate settings, due to the ongoing extraordinary movement in market conditions. The nature of the constantly changing environment in which we operate requires that we regularly review our interest rates to ensure they reflect market conditions whilst maintaining a balance between our customers’ loans and investment requirements.

The ADF is committed to serving, supporting and empowering the Mission of our Church while maintaining long-term stability, and this ultimately drives every decision we make. After careful consideration the ADF Board has approved a rate increase for all customers effective 1st August 2022.

The ADF’s new standard rates will be:

Standard Variable Loan Rate: 4.25%
Standard Investment Rates:
Up to $499,999 1.25%
$500,000 to $1,999,999 1.45%
Over $2,000,000 1.60%

The ongoing volatility in market conditions will likely mean that there will be further increases in the ADF’s interest rates this year. While the ADF cannot confirm the quantum or timing of future interest rate changes, we will always look to balance the impact of the market conditions to provide good stewardship in support of the Mission of the Church.

To support our customers with loans and continue to provide certainty in these unusual times, please note that it is ADF practice not to vary principal and interest loan repayments when interest rates increase. As such, principal and interest loan repayments on existing loans will remain consistent at the existing repayments levels.

Once again, we would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support of the ADF. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact your ADF Relationship Manager or the Service Delivery Team on 07 3324 3777.

While there is much uncertainty in the marketplace, the ADF continues to focus on supporting our customers to achieve their goals and mission, by providing strong customer orientated solutions while balancing prudent financial management. A key part of this mandate is to review interest rate settings regularly to ensure they reflect market conditions whilst maintaining a balance between competitive investment returns and a fair borrowing rate to support capital development.

After careful consideration the ADF Board has approved a rate increase for all customers effective 1st July 2022.

The ADF’s new standard rates will be:

Standard Variable Loan Rate: 3.75%

Standard Investment Rates:
Up to $499,999 0.75%
$500,000 to $1,999,999 0.95%
Over $2,000,000 1.10%

The current volatility in market conditions will likely mean that there will be further increases in the ADF’s interest rates this year. While the ADF cannot confirm the quantum or timing of future interest rate changes, we will always look to balance the impact of the market conditions to provide good stewardship in support of the Mission of the Church.

To support our customers with loans and continue to provide certainty in these unusual times, please note that it is ADF practice not to vary principal and interest loan repayments when interest rates increase. As such, principal and interest loan repayments on existing loans will remain consistent at the existing repayments levels.

Once again, I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support of the ADF. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact your ADF Relationship Manager or the Service Delivery Team.

The ADF wishes to remind all customers to beware of invoice email scams as they can result in potentially large losses if not detected.

What is invoice fraud?

Invoice fraud can involve notifying your company that supplier payment details have changed and providing alternative details in order to defraud you.

The fraudster could be claiming to be from a genuine supplier, or even be posing as a member of your business. Funds are often quickly transferred so recovering money from fraudulent accounts can be extremely difficult.

How does invoice fraud happen?

Invoice fraudsters may be aware of the relationships between companies and their suppliers, and will know the details of when regular payments are due. The fraud may only be discovered when the legitimate supplier follows up on non-payments.

Fraudulent letters and emails sent to companies are often well-written, meaning the fraud is difficult to spot without strong operating processes and controls in place. Email addresses are also easy to spoof, or in the case of malware-infected PCs, criminals can access genuine email addresses.

The process of changing the bank details of someone you are paying should always be treated with extreme caution.

How you can help to prevent invoice fraud – a checklist

• Always check the details of any new/amended payment instructions verbally by using details held on file, and do not solely rely on the new instruction. Fraudsters can imitate email addresses to make them appear to be from a genuine contact, including someone from your own organisation.
• If you are suspicious about a request made by phone, call them back on a trusted number. Fraudsters will attempt to pressure you into making mistakes – take the pressure off by taking control of the situation.
• Look carefully at every invoice and compare it to previous ones received that you know to be genuine – particularly the bank account details, wording used and the company logo. When making a payment, ensure your invoices quote the full legal or ‘trading as’ name.
• Consider setting up single points of contact with the companies you pay regularly.
• Apply the same principles to requests from within your own organisation.
• Fraudsters will look for opportunities to exploit any vulnerabilities in your processes. Therefore it is crucial to ensure staff are regularly educated, particularly those that are responsible for making payments.
• While working remotely, ensure you and your colleagues remain vigilant and adhere to relevant checks and processes.

Please note that the ADF will be closed on Monday 25^th April for the gazetted Anzac Day public holiday. ADF Online will still be available, however transactions loaded on Monday 25^th will be processed and released on Tuesday 26^th April.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Lest we Forget.

The ADF would like to Advise that there will be minimal to no disruption to our services as a result of the 3-day lockdown, commencing 29th June 2021 at 6pm.

We have a number of measures in place internally and with our suppliers to ensure continuous delivery of all ADF services including but not limited to:

• Inward and outward transaction processing;
• Accessing and making payments through ADF online;
• Direct Debits;
• Processing of files received through ShareFile; and
• Handling of all calls and emails to ADF

Please contact you Relationship Manager or the ADF if you would like any additional information.

We hope that all of our customers remain safe and we that you for your support.

The ADF performed an upgrade to our core transaction processing software including ADF Online last Friday, 21^st May 2021. Overall, the upgrade has been a success, allowing us to improve our internal platform, remove outdated system modifications as well as introduce stronger security protocols and additional functionality through ADF Online. However, as with any system change of this magnitude, we have encountered some issues which have been forwarded through to our vendors for rectification. We wish to thank all the ADF Online users who made contact with us yesterday to notify us of these issues or changes that they encountered which have been forwarded through to our vendors for rectification and we apologise for any inconvenience these have caused.
 
Identified Issues
 
Below is the details on the issues that we have identified since the upgrade.

• Current Issues
  • Some accounts, in particular loans unable to be viewed by full authorisers. This requires a manual correction which the team are working through, we expect this to be completed by 30^th June, however if you require urgent access to your loan accounts, please advise your Relationship Manager.
  • Missing account name details in the Direct Debit Address Book for data users and full signatory. This is currently being investigated by our vendor. This is not impacting the direct debits going out or how they appear in the account when they are processed, simply how they display in the Address Book.
• Rectified Issues
  • The ADF were unable to set up new signatories and establish their access to accounts. This was rectified Tuesday morning.
  • Some data users were experiencing a ‘system error’ when they were attempting to log in. We put a work around in place while this was being investigated and we received confirmation from our vendor that this issue was rectified late Monday afternoon.

ADF Online Changes

To provide you with a more stable, secure platform and enable the delivery of the additional functionality (now and into future), the following changes have been made to ADF Online.

• All transactions, whether to external accounts or other accounts held at the ADF now require two signatories to authorise all payments. This is an increased security protocol for transfers to other ADF accounts.
• Batch payments and single transfers need to have sufficient funds in the account before they will be able to be processed in ADF Online.
• The account number that is to be used for all electronic deposits made to your accounts is now shown in the Account List which can be found under the Payments tab. It can also be found under the Services tab, BSB and Account Information. Please ensure you are no longer providing the old account numbers and only provide this one from now on.
• If you are processing payments to the ADF BSB (064-786) either as a single transfer or within an uploaded creditor batch, you must use the electronic account number of that account. ADF Online performs a validation on all transactions using our BSB to ensure the account is valid. It will not accept the old account number format. If you have the old account number format for any entity you are attempting to pay, you will need to contact them and obtain the new electronic account number.
• Changes to transaction CSV download format with an additional column for the effective date of the transactions.
• Changes to inward Bpay credit payment narrations with an additional reference field of ‘payment’ now appearing.
• The ability to upload Bpay payment files. If your accounting system has the capability to generate Bpay creditor payment files, these can now be uploaded and processed through ADF Online the same way you import normal creditor batches.

Security Enhancements

 There are some enhancements we have made to accounts and transaction processing to increase the protection and audit controls on your accounts.

All transactions are now two to authorise, irrespective of where the transfer is being paid to. This is to ensure proper security controls are in place for all transactions as well as provide an additional layer of protection in the event that log in details are compromised.

• In the coming weeks we will be introducing the ability for you to initiate a password reset from the ADF Online login page if you have forgotten your password. Additional details on this will be provided when this functionality is ready for use.
• Towards the end of the year we will also be introducing SMS One Time Passwords as a second layer of authentication that is required to initiate transactions through ADF Online. We will provide updates on this functionality as we approve the go live dates (yet to be determined).

The ADF would like to thank all of customers for your support throughout this upgrade process.
Please don’t hesitate to contact the ADF on adfmail@bne.catholic.net.au or 07 3324 3777 if you have any questions in regards to the system upgrade or experience any issues with the new ADF Online link or system.

ADF Online will be unavailable due to planned maintenance between 3:30pm Friday 21st May 2021 to 9am Saturday 22nd May 2021.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Due to schedule maintenance, ADF Online will be unavailable on Sunday 16^th May between 1pm-4pm.

To ensure your ADF Online log in details remain as secure as possible, the ADF recommends that you:

• Never instruct your computer to save your ADF Online password
• Never record your password anywhere either in writing or online
• Never share your login name or password

If you feel your details have been compromised, please contact the ADF immediately

The ADF has taken steps to strengthen its capacity to support you in the mission that connects us.

Challenging times demand responses which has prompted the ADF Board to review and apply new interest settings.

New rates, effective 1 April 2021 on both investments and loans, refer below:

Standard Variable Loan Rate:-                  3.25% 

Standard Investment Rates:-

            Up to $499,999                                   0.25%

            $500,000 to $1,999,999                     0.45%

Over $2,000,000 0.60%