Prepared on 1 January 2018

1. Overview

This Information Statement is about the Term Investment Account that the CDF Community Fund offers.

2. Terms and Conditions

How your investment works?

The Term Investment Account is a debenture issued by the Roman Catholic Trusts Corporation for the Diocese of Melbourne ABN: 52 768 159 282 for the CDF Community Fund ABN 94 380 397 118. The balance held in your Term Investment Account is a debt owed to you by us with a promise to return your principal sum and interest only to you.

Who can invest?

Any person or an entity can invest in our Term Investment Account. The Term Investment Account is designed for investors who wish to support the charitable and religious works of the Catholic Church.

What is the minimum initial investment?

The minimum initial investment required to open a Term Investment Account is $2,000.00.

All investments must be made in Australian Dollars.

How to make an investment?

The investment may be made by:

1. direct debit from your bank account with an Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI) (an example of an ADI is a bank); or
2. rolling over your funds held with a Development Fund of the Catholic Church.

If you are making your initial investment by direct debit, the bank account nominated must be in the same name as the name in which your Term Investment Account is held.

Can additional investments be made before the maturity date?

Prior to the maturity date, you cannot make additional investments of any amount to your Term Investment Account as it is a product fixed for a pre-defined time until maturation on a pre-defined date. However, you can invest in a new Term Investment Account, Mission Saver Account (if eligible) or 31 Day Mission Saver Account.

Also, you can at the maturity date of your Term Investment Account choose to add additional amounts and/or rollover your term investment (principal) and/or including interest.

Member Acknowledgement:

Unless you qualify to invest in a Mission Saver Account, any person investing in a Term Investment Account must first sign a Member Acknowledgement form before we can open the Term Investment Account.

You are qualified to invest in a Mission Saver Account if you are:

• a Catholic Employee (see below);
• a Wholesale Investor (your investment is over $500,000); or
• a Professional Investor (you have net assets of over $2,500,000 confirmed in writing by a qualified financial planner or qualified accountant).

A ‘Catholic Employee’ is an employee of any Catholic Organisation.

‘Catholic Organisations’ are those organisations listed in the Australian Catholic Directory including (Catholic education, orders, public juridic persons, congregations, clergy / training clergy).

If you are no longer eligible for a Mission Saver Account (for example, you are no longer employed by a Catholic Organisation), you must promptly notify us by no later than 10 working days of cessation of your eligibility.

Once we receive your notification, you will need to sign the Member Acknowledgement.

How long will it take for my money to be invested? 

Requests for investments into your Term Investment Account received by us before 11am on any working day will usually be processed on that day.

If your request is unable to be processed for any reason (for example if you have provided us with insufficient or incorrect details of your transactional banking account held with an ADI, requests will be processed as soon as reasonably practical after we receive complete or correct information.

We reserve the right to refuse your request to invest in an Investment Term Account for any reason. We are not required to advise you of our reasons for any particular decision.

CDF Community Fund Online:

You can manage your Term Investment Account with CDF Community Fund Online. To be setup on CDF Community Fund Online you will need to complete the Member Online Access Request.

All electronic withdrawals must be linked to an ADI. The name of the ADI account must match the name on your account. If there is a joint Term Investment Account, it will need to be linked to a joint ADI account in the same names.

How to withdraw your money?

Term Investment Accounts are for a fixed term, at a minimum of 1 month (31 days).

Upon maturity of a Term Investment Account, you may:

1. renew your investment for another fixed term;
2. withdraw your investment to be paid by:

(a) a transfer to your ADI bank account, our 31 Day Mission Saver Account, our Mission Saver Account (provided you are eligible) via CDF Community Fund Online.

You can also instruct us to do any of the above things by completing the maturity instructions on our application form or by contacting us before the Term Investment Account matures.

We will also provide with a notice either through the mail, email or via CDF Community Fund Online as to your reinvestment instructions.

If we receive no instructions from you regarding how you wish to deal with your money on maturity of the Term Investment Account, we will establish a new 31 Day Mission Saver Account or Mission Saver Account (provided you are eligible) using your name and information supplied on our application form.

Financial Hardship:

You may request that we to repay the Term Investment Account before its maturity where the request is to alleviate financial hardship that you are suffering. If you are suffering financial hardship, please contact us so that we may understand your need to withdraw your investment before maturity. You can view our Hardship Policy here.

Unless you can demonstrate that you are suffering financial hardship, withdrawal requests prior to maturity for Term Investments Accounts will not be granted.

Interest:

The rate of interest payable to you will be stated on our website under Interest Rates.

Interest is calculated daily and compounded upon the maturity date. If your term investment is for 24 months you can choose to have interest paid annually.

What about fees and charges? 

We do not charge any fees to you for investing in a Term Investment Account, unless the account has been classified as a ‘dormant account’.

A one-off fee of $20 ‘Dormant Account-Keeping Fee’ and then a quarterly fee of $5.00 is charged in respect of each ‘dormant account’.

‘Dormant Account-Keeping Fees’ will be automatically debited from your Term Investment.

View our Dormancy Policy here. Investors should be aware that fees may be charged by third parties that issue products and services that relate and facilitate your use of your Term Investment.

Change in your details:

You must promptly notify us if you change your name or address.

Tax File Numbers:

You are not obliged to provide us with your Tax File Number (TFN) / TFN exemption or Australian Business Number (ABN). However, if you fail to do so, the Fund is required by law to withhold tax from interest where a TFN, TFN exemption or ABN has not been quoted on an investment, and where interest is payable to a non-resident.

Changes to Terms and Conditions

We may change some of the terms and conditions of your investment with us. We will tell you of the change by publishing the change on our website and on CDF Community Fund Online no later than the day of change.

3. How to apply for a Term Investment

You may apply to open a Term Investment by completing our application form. Please ensure that all fields on our application form are correctly completed. Please ensure that you sign and date our application form.

Your application must be accompanied by ID documents and signature samples as per the ID requirements specified in the account application form. Investing with the Fund is conditional upon you providing the necessary identification information and the Fund carrying out any necessary verification check(s).

Opening funds may be contributed via a direct debit authority for the initial investment amount as indicated on our application form, or alternatively a cheque posted to CDF, Customer Service Team, PO Box 174, East Melbourne, VIC, 8002. Your application cannot be processed until all of our requirements are met to our satisfaction.

4. Contact Us

We are pleased to answer any questions that you may have about your Term Investment Account.

Please feel free to contact us at:
CDF Community Fund, Melbourne Office:
St Patrick’s Centre
486 Albert Street, East Melbourne VIC 3002

Mail: P. O. Box 174, East Melbourne VIC 8002
Phone: (03) 9926 2200
Phone (toll free): 1800 134 135
Email: csg@melbcdf.org.au

5. Privacy Policy

View the CDF Community Fund Privacy Policy.

6. Complaints

We are committed to resolving any problem or dispute you may have with us. Please let us know if you have any problem, dispute or complaint by contacting our complaints officer as follows:

Complaints Officer
Phone: (03) 9926 2200
Phone (toll free): 1800 134 135
Email: csg@melbcdf.org.au
Mail: P. O. Box 174, East Melbourne VIC 8002

Our complaints officer will deal with your complaint in an efficient and timely manner. Our complaints officer will provide you with information about how your complaint will be processed and the expected time frame for resolving the complaint.

If an issue has not been resolved to your satisfaction, you can lodge a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, or AFCA. AFCA provides fair and independent financial services complaint resolution that is free to consumers.

Website: www.afca.org.au
Email: info@afca.org.au
Telephone: 1800 931 678 (free call)
In writing to: Australian Financial Complaints Authority GPO Box 3, Melbourne VIC 3001

7. Important information

Disclosure: CDPF Limited, a company established by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, has indemnified the CDF Community Fund ABN 94 380 397 118 (the Fund) against any liability arising out of a claim by investors in the Fund. In practice, this means your investment is backed by the assets of Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The Fund is required by law to make the following disclosure:

Investment in the Fund is only intended to attract investors whose primary purpose for making their investment is to support the charitable purposes of the Fund. Investor’s funds will be used to generate a return to the Fund that will be applied to further the charitable works of the Catholic Church. The Fund is not prudentially supervised by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority nor has it been examined or approved by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). An investor in the Fund will not receive the benefit of the financial claims scheme or the depositor protection provisions in the Banking Act 1959 (Cth). The investments that the Fund offers are not subject to the usual protections for investors under the Corporations Act (Cth) or regulation by ASIC. Investors may be unable to get some or all of their money back when the investor expects or at all and investments in the Fund are not comparable to investments with banks, finance companies or fund managers. The Fund’s identification statement may be viewed here or by contacting the Fund. The Fund does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence. The Fund has entered into an intermediary authorisation with CDFCF AFSL Limited ABN 49 622 976 747, AFSL No. 504202 to issue and deal in debentures.

Terms and conditions for your investment are contained in this Information Statement.

Updates to this Information Statement:

We reserve the right to change this Information Statement. We will notify you of these changes by publishing the change on our website.

* This is not an ‘offer information statement’ as defined in section 715 of the Corporations Act.