GetUp pockets commission $$$ for every customer it refers to its bank
Wednesday, 06 February 2019
Couldn't have put it better ourselves GetUp!
Front page of The Australian today - GetUp receives commission payments for every customer it refers to its preferred bank. And the amounts aren't small change - GetUp gets $1,860 as a commission payment on an average $465,000 home loan transferred under the deal.
All the while GetUp has been parroting the Labor line tying the Coalition to the "evil" banks.
Here's some of The Australian's story today:
Left-wing activist hub GetUp is earning windfall commissions for supporters to switch to a little-known bank that kicks back a fee on savings accounts and every mortgage changed over.
The deal between the high-minded pressure group and Bank Australia is a handy earner for GetUp at a time when it is going after the major banks for cheating customers and financing “unethical and damaging” projects.
Bank Australia, a mutual that is cashing in on the damage inflicted on its big-name rivals by Kenneth Hayne’s financial services royal commission, pays GetUp 0.4 per cent of the value of home loans and $50 on accounts with monthly deposits of more than $2000 transferred by its membership.
The mortgage offer, detailed in a page on the GetUp website, would reap a commission of $1860 on an average-sized home loan in NSW worth $465,100.
GetUp’s 2018 accounts show it earned $452,190 from such referrals in the past two years, on top of the reported $2 million pocketed from encouraging its claimed one million supporters to go with online energy retailer Powershop under another sweetheart deal.
Defending the commission arrangement with Bank Australia, GetUp said yesterday it received on average $75 for each person who had shifted banks through the “pilot partnership”.
“While we can’t give financial advice, we tell people that Bank Australia is an ethical alternative to the big banks … and are transparent we will receive a one-off donation if someone makes the switch,” a spokesman insisted.
Gerard Benedet, national director of the Advance Australia group which presents as a conservative answer to GetUp, said the deal would “leave a sour taste in anyone’s mouth”.
“The banking royal commission has taken aim at secret commissions paid to mortgage brokers. Now GetUp has been caught accepting commissions from Bank Australia,” he said.
ENDS
GetUp's certainly not struggling for donations - $11M in the past year, $1.1M in the past month!