News

2019 marked 50 years since the ADF was established. Throughout this time, the ADF has supported the Catholic community across a number of different sectors including health care, aged care, education, social welfare and social and affordable housing.

In 2019, the ADF continued to deliver a strong financial performance despite unprecedented economic challenges allowing the ADF to provide a $17m distribution to the Archdiocese to fund key pastoral ministries and initiatives. Our 2019 Annual Report further details our financial performance as well as works we have undertaken to support our community and customers. The Annual Report can be found here.

The Catholic Leader, in their most recent publication discusses the successful launch of our new Parish Giving App and the positive impact it is having.

Emilie Ng, journalist for The Catholic Leader writes ‘On Brisbane’s northside, parish priest of Little Flower Church, Kedron, Fr Mario Debattista said the app was “another opportunity for people to give if they want to give”.

“It just gives another opportunity for people to offer something to the parish, which we appreciate especially at this time,” Fr Debattista said.                                                                                            

Fr Debattista acknowledged that older parishioners might “prefer the old-fashioned way” of giving to the parish but said “it is definitely a help”.’ The article can be found in full in the May 17, 2020 edition of The Catholic Leader

The ADF will be closed on Monday 4^th May 2020 for Qld May Day. Any transactions loaded on or for the 4^th May will not be processed by the ADF until Tuesday 5^th May.

The transactional processing issues we were experiencing this morning have now been rectified and you are now able to download your transactions for the 30th April and today. We apologise for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

We are currently experiencing issues with our transactional processing system which is impacting our ability to process payments received overnight to ADF accounts and we are also unable to run any direct debit or Bpay files this morning. As a result of these issues, you will be unable to download any transactions for the 30^th April or today.  We are working with our software provider to rectify this issue as soon as possible. We will provide an update on this when available and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

The ADF would like to advise that, in the event a COVID-19 pandemic is declared and/or movement restrictions are enforced, there will be minimal to no disruption to our services.

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; and
• Handling of all calls and emails to the ADF.

Please contact your Relationship Manager or the ADF if you would like any additional information on the ADF’s preparedness in the event this situation occurs.

The ADF wishes to advise all customers be aware of a current overpayment fraud trend that is impacting Queensland businesses.

Overpayment or ‘payment in error’ fraud involves fraudsters making payments via a business’s online payment link and then contacting the business to advise an incorrect payment amount was entered or the payment was made in error and they request the funds be returned via account transfer.

How the Fraud Works

This is quite a sophisticated fraud attempt where the fraudster works hard to make you believe they made the payment in error and that they need the funds returned immediately.

• The fraudster steals credit card details and then uses these stolen credit card details to process a payment using your online payment link (BPOINT page) for a relatively large amount
• The fraudster will then email you to confirm if you received the payment, they generally don’t ask for the money back immediately as they attempt to build a rapport with you first
• When you advise that you have received it, they will then ask for you to return the funds.  They will either say that they only wish to make a small payment or donation and will request the difference be returned to them via account transfer or they will say they made the payment in error and request the full amount be returned via account transfer
• They have been successful in their fraud if you return the funds via account transfer and you will then be out of pocket the amount that you transferred plus the amount of the original transaction as the issuer of the stolen credit card will also reverse the transaction from your account.

How to Protect Your School or Parish

There are a number of steps that your business can take to protect yourself from frauds of this nature.

• Ensure your staff are aware of this scam and understand how it works so they can identify it, avoid it and report it.
• Perform regular reconciliations of your BPOINT payments to ensure you can allocate all payments
• If you receive any payments that you are not expecting or the records do not match any you have on file, refund the payment immediately back onto the card via BPOINT
• As per you merchant refund policy, refunds can only be granted in the method the payment was made eg a card transaction can only be refunded back to the card
• If you receive any emails requesting an overpayment or payment made in error be refunded via account transfer, do not action it.  Advise the sender that you will refund the transaction directly back to the card and process it through BPOINT immediately.
• Under no circumstances should you refund the transaction via any other method.

More details on this scam can be found at https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/buying-or-selling/overpayment-scams

If you are concerned that you may have been a victim of this or any other scam, please contact the ADF immediately.

As per previous notice, an error was made by the Archdiocesan Development Fund (ADF) on Monday 24th February which has resulted in all payments due between the 24th and 29th February being processed on the 24th February.

Please refer below for more details on the payments impacted and issues that may arise as a result of this.

Scheduled payments to Creditors – Single EFT Transfers or Bpay Payments

Any one off or single EFT transfers or Bpay payments that were scheduled to process on any day from the 24th to the 29th February have been processed and sent effective Monday 24th February.  

However, as the system believes all single EFT transfers and Bpay payments have been sent up until the 29th February, you will be unable to alter or cancel payments that have been paid within this period and you are unable to load any new single payments with a start date earlier than the 1st March 2020.

Direct Debits

All direct debits from external accounts including school fees and parishioner donations/collections that were due on any day from the 24th to the 29th February have been processed and the deposits processed to your ADF account. However, to ensure your customers are not negatively impacted by this issue, we have been able to develop a solution to ensure that these debits are only deducted from the external account on the day it was actually due.

For example, a school has a fee direct debit due to deduct from a parents account on the 28th February. The school received these funds on the 24th February however the parent’s account will not be deducted until 28th as per normal. 

However, as the system believes all debits have been sent up until the 29th February, we are unable to alter or cancel debits that have been paid within this period and we are unable to load any new debits with a start date earlier than the 1st March 2020.

User Managed Direct Debits

For schools who are managing their own direct debits via ADF Online you are unable to alter or cancel debits that have been paid within this period and you are unable to load any new debits with a start date earlier than the 1st March 2020.

Payment Batches

As payment batches loaded through ADF Online are handled in a different part of the system than scheduled single EFTs and direct debits, these are unaffected by this issue and you can continue to load creditor or debtor batches as per normal.

Pay Now Single EFT Transfers and Bpay Payments

You can continue to load single EFT transfers and Bpay payments using the Pay Now option as these should not be impacted by this issue.

The ADF would like to thank our customers for your understanding during this period and would like to apologise for this error and the inconvenience that this has caused.

If you are unable to action any urgent items or you or your customers have incurred any costs as a result of this, please contact your ADF Relationship Manager to discuss. Alternatively you can contact the ADF on 07 3324 3777 or via email adf@bne.catholic.net.au.  

We wish to advise that due to a processing error, all future dated transactions with a date up until the 29^th February have been processed this morning, this includes all loan payments, external payments and direct debits.

We are treating this with the highest of priority and are investigating a solution to fix this issue asap. We will be providing updates via our website as we work this through this issue. We apologise for this issue and any inconvenience that this may cause.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the ADF if you have any questions.