Financial hardship application

If you’re a personal banking customer and you’re experiencing financial difficulty, we may be able to help. This could be because of an illness, injury, loss of employment or income, or the end of a relationship.

We also have a range of resources on our financial difficulty page.

Financial hardship

If you’re having trouble managing payments on any of the below, you can talk to us, or apply for a hardship variation.

• Home loans
• Personal loans
• Credit cards
• Arranged overdrafts
• Consumer asset finance

A hardship variation is a change to the conditions of your loan. You can apply for a hardship variation by making a request to us in writing explaining your situation, or filling out our Application for Hardship form (PDF 243KB). You can also pick up this form in one of our branches. 

You’ll need to request one of the following options (we’ll contact you if the option you’ve chosen isn’t available for your loan):

a. extend the loan term and reduce the amount of each payment

b. postpone, during a specified period, the dates on which payments are due;

c. both of the above.

Send your completed hardship application and supporting documentation to bnzcare@bnz.co.nz. You can also take it into any BNZ branch or post it to:

BNZ Care
Private Bag 92089
Auckland 1142
New Zealand

If you would prefer to make your request by writing to us, don’t forget to include your account number.

Do this as soon as possible because if you leave it for too long you may not qualify. All hardship applications are subject to BNZ assessment and approval. Your application must contain the signatures of all parties.

Contact us

You can contact us on 0800 375 007 Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm.

Business customers

The hardship applications described above are for personal banking customers, and are not available for businesses, investment vehicles, partnership or trusts.  

If you’re a BNZ Partners customer, please contact your Partner to discuss.