NerdWallet Australia Financial Services Guide and Credit Guide

Date: This Guide is prepared on 15 June 2024

Issuer:  This Guide is issued by NerdWallet Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 69 667 317 857) (“NerdWallet”, “we”, us”), Australian Financial Services Licence and Australian Credit Licence No: 554604.

This Guide is a combined Financial Services Guide and Credit Guide which provides you with important information to help you decide whether to use any of NerdWallet’s financial services or credit services.  This includes information about:

• who we are;
• the financial services and credit services we offer;
• relationships that might be expected to influence us;
• how NerdWallet and our employees and contractors are remunerated;
• NerdWallet’s complaints handling process, including our internal and external dispute resolution procedures.

NerdWallet is licensed under the Corporations Act 2001 to provide certain financial services and is licensed under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 to provide certain credit services, which are described in this Guide.  We are required to provide this Guide to you before we provide any financial services or credit services.  

If you apply for any services from a financial product issuer through our website, the financial product issuer may give you additional disclosure documents.  These additional disclosure documents may include a Product Disclosure Statement explaining the financial product, a Target Market Determination explaining who the product is suitable for, their Financial Services Guide explaining the financial services they provide, and possibly also Statement of Advice if they give you personal advice about their product. 

If you apply for a credit product through our website, the credit provider may give you additional disclosure documents, which may include their Credit Guide explaining the credit services they provide and a Target Market Determination explaining who the credit product is suitable for.  You should read the disclosure documents carefully, as they provide important information to help you make an informed decision about whether to buy the product. 

Who are we?

NerdWallet is wholly owned by NerdWallet Inc.  

NerdWallet is a financial advice website that helps consumers and business owners make smarter financial decisions. With rigorous editorial research and evaluation by financial experts, NerdWallet provides both general financial information and reviews and comparisons of financial products and credit products available in the market. All of NerdWallet Australia’s services are delivered in the form of website content. 

NerdWallet is a subsidiary of and has the financial backing of NerdWallet Inc, a Nasdaq listed financial services business. It was founded in 2009 by Tim Chen. NerdWallet Inc.’s mission is to provide clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. Its vision is a world where everyone makes financial decisions with confidence. It achieves the mission and vision by providing trustworthy financial guidance to consumers and small and mid-sized businesses.

NerdWallet Inc. is based in the United States. NerdWallet will be substantially operated from the United States, with support from local Australian staff engaged to assist with preparing content and providing supervision for regulatory compliance.

Financial Services and Credit Services that NerdWallet provides 

Services we are authorised to provide

NerdWallet is authorised, pursuant to our Australian Financial Services Licence to provide general advice on and to deal in the following classes of financial products:

• basic deposit products;
• non-basic deposit products (term deposits);
• general insurance products (including home and contents, motor vehicle, travel and business insurance); and
• superannuation products, 

to retail and wholesale clients.

NerdWallet is authorised, pursuant to our Australian Credit Licence, to engage in credit activities limited to acting as an intermediary in the course of, as part of, or incidentally to a business, where we: 

1. act as an intermediary (whether directly or indirectly) between a credit provider and a consumer wholly or partly for the purposes of securing credit under a credit contract for the consumer with the credit provider; or
2. act as an intermediary (whether directly or indirectly) between a lessor and a consumer wholly or partly for the purposes of securing a consumer lease for the consumer with the lessor.  

We are authorised to provide credit services (by acting as an intermediary) for the following categories of credit products:

• Home Loans
• Personal Loans
• Overdrafts
• Credit Cards
• Asset Finance
• Consumer Leases
• Business Loans

How we provide financial services and credit services

We provide these services in the following ways, through our website: 

• by publishing editorial content and product comparisons, including product ratings and awards;
• by online referrals to product issuers and credit providers;
• by publishing advertisements and sponsored content.  

We may provide general advice about financial products, where the content we publish includes a recommendation or statement of opinion that may influence a customer’s decision regarding a particular financial product or class of financial products, and we may assist in arranging applications for a financial product through our online referrals.  We do not provide personal advice, which means that our content will not take into account the objectives, financial situation or needs of any customer.  

We may provide credit assistance, where we are an intermediary between you and a credit provider through our online referrals. We may act as an intermediary between you and a credit provider or lessor through our online referrals.  Our content may include general commentary about particular credit products offered by credit providers, but we will not suggest that a customer apply for a particular credit contract with a credit provider or an increase in an existing credit contract, or that a customer remains in a particular credit contract.  

You can only apply for a financial product directly with the product issuer, and you can only apply for a credit contract, or an increase in credit, directly with the credit provider.  Our website may contain links to the websites of product issuers and credit providers, which you can use to submit an application to them if you wish.  We do not accept applications on behalf of product issuers or credit providers.  

Any advertisements or sponsored content will be clearly labelled as such. 

Significant relationships 

NerdWallet proposes to enter into referral arrangements from time to time with product issuers and credit providers.  NerdWallet will be paid a fee for referrals under these arrangements– see How are NerdWallet and our staff paid?

HSBC Australia is NerdWallet’s primary banker in Australia. All dealings with HSBC Australia in this capacity are managed by NerdWallet Inc’s Head Office on behalf of NerdWallet Australia and the banking relationship has no influence on NerdWallet’s research and editorial content.

NerdWallet is wholly owned by NerdWallet Inc which is listed on NASDAQ.  NerdWallet Inc is not owned by any financial product issuer or credit provider (except to the extent that financial institutions may from time to time own holdings in NerdWallet Inc acquired by trading on NASDAQ). 

How are NerdWallet and our staff paid?

NerdWallet will generate revenue from two primary activities:

1. referral fees received from product issuers and credit providers that we have referral arrangements with; and
2. placement of paid advertisements and sponsored content. 

Revenue arrangements will be negotiated on an individual basis with each product issuer and credit provider and the amount and/or calculation methodology may therefore vary between arrangements.  When we have referral arrangements in place, consumers will be able to request details of the referral fees applicable to a product or service they are interested in.  

We do not charge any fees to customers for access to our website content or for using links available through our website.  If you apply for a financial product or credit product through our website, the product issuer or credit provider will notify you of any fees that they charge.  

Our editorial and content writers are employees or contractors who are paid fixed salaries or fixed hourly rates and do not receive bonuses or commissions.  No part of their remuneration is linked to volume or sales related targets for any product or category of products or for any product issuer or credit provider, or to revenue received by NerdWallet.

Do we pay anyone for referrals to us?

We do not have any arrangements to pay fees or provide other benefits to other parties for referring customers to our website.  We might from time to time pay for placement of advertising in online locations and on other media (e.g. television and podcasts), or pay for use of digital marketing services to increase traffic to our website. 

NerdWallet’s compensation arrangements 

NerdWallet maintains professional indemnity insurance for compensation purposes. This insurance covers former NerdWallet employees in respect of events occurring during their employment. These compensation arrangements and the level of insurance cover held by NerdWallet satisfy the requirements of section 912B of the Corporations Act 2001.

What if I have a complaint?

To lodge a complaint about NerdWallet’s services, you should contact us by sending an email to [email protected] addressed to the Complaints Officer, setting out the details of your complaint.  We will consider and respond to your complaint in accordance with our internal dispute resolution procedures.  

If you are not satisfied with NerdWallet’s response, you may lodge a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).  The contact details for AFCA are:

If you have a complaint about a financial product or credit product that you have acquired through a link on our website, you should contact the product issuer or credit provider.  The documents they have provided to you, or their website, will have details of how to lodge a complaint with them.