How Athena Repayments Work | Athena Home Loans

We offer flexible repayment options to help you pay down your home loan faster.

Here’s the low-down on how each option works. Choose what suits you best!

Regular direct debits.

We’ll debit your linked bank account for your repayment amount based on your chosen frequency (weekly, fortnightly or monthly), this includes any extra repayments you’ve set up.

Your repayments will land into either your redraw or offset, depending which one you have. It saves you interest calculated on a daily basis. Easy.

On your monthly billing date, your minimum loan repayment amount is debited from either your redraw or offset to permanently pay down your principal. Any extra repayments you’ve chosen to make will remain in your redraw or offset. In other words, the extra repayments do not go towards paying down your principal, unless you request a ‘limit reduction’.

Direct debit payments are the most common for our customers. It’s set and forget. Read how weekly and fortnightly direct debits help you pay down your loan faster here.

Flexible repayments from your offset or redraw

Have full control of adding funds directly into your redraw or offset at anytime. Do it weekly, fortnightly, monthly or whenever you like. These funds can be used to meet your minimum loan repayments without regular direct debits from your linked account.

On your monthly repayment day, we will debit your redraw or offset to make your minimum loan repayment.

Extra funds are always held in your redraw or offset. Any extra repayments that’s left in your redraw or offset will stay there to continue saving you interest, calculated on a daily basis. You’ll need to make sure you have a sufficient balance to avoid missing any monthly minimum repayments.

Salary crediting

Pay your salary directly into your Athena loan.

If you’ve got salary crediting set up, your funds will land straight into your redraw or offset and your monthly minimum loan repayments will be deducted from this.

Have a look at the below example of how it works.

So what does that mean for me?

By having $20k in your offset or redraw account, you are paying down your principal faster by an additional $64 every month!

Good to know!

You can use extra funds in your redraw or offset to pay down your principal permanently, this is called a limit reduction.

Repayments FAQs

How does my repayment choice impact the interest savings I get?

Weekly or fortnightly direct debit from an external linked bank account – your money is in your offset or redraw for more days of the month than paying via monthly direct debit and saves you more interest
Flexible repayments – your money is already in your redraw or offset account saving you interest daily. To maximise your interest saving you should aim to keep as much money as you can in your offset or redraw, based on your needs
Your offset interest savings will be stated on your 6 monthly loan statement or you can also request ad hoc statements if you need this value more frequently

How does my interest savings help me pay off my principal faster?

You always get 100% interest offset value from your funds that are in your redraw or offset account
Interest is calculated daily on your loan balance, charged monthly
Your monthly minimum repayment is set assuming you don’t make extra repayments or have any balance in your offset. So, if you have money in your offset, you pay less interest and that bit of extra between ‘expected’ interest and ‘actual’ interest goes towards paying down your principal

Why do I need to request a limit reduction when I want to pay off my principal even faster?

Limit decreases allows you to permanently reduce your limit, which means you can’t access these funds again without a new credit application
A loan decrease allows you to lower your LVR (loan-to-value ratio) so that you can potentially drop your own rate with AcceleRATES
We don’t reduce your limit automatically because many customers keep these extra repayments for a reason (usually because they want access to it). Just by keeping the extra repayments in your offset or redraw, you are repaying your loan faster
You can make permanent limit reductions anytime you wish, to repay your principal further. Call or email to discuss how. Remember, all borrowers on the loan must approve the change!